UNSINKABLE DEBBIE REYNOLDS TAKING SETBACKS IN STRIDE.

Byline: Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Debbie Reynolds says she's adopting a Scarlett O'Hara attitude - `` `I'll think about that tomorrow' - because if you look at all your problems at once, they can seem too insurmountable, and you get depressed.''

These are trying times for the veteran star. ``My mother is very ill, and 86,'' notes Debbie, who has been winging back and forth from performance dates across the country to be with her mother. ``My adopted second mother - my only drama coach - died this month, and I'm in the middle of closing out her apartment ...'' And Reynolds just put all the memorabilia from her bankrupt Las Vegas museum-hotel into storage.

``Six years of work down the drain ... I've had two offers for other locations (for the museum), but I want to wait awhile and rest my head before moving it anywhere.''

Debbie has the fanciful Disney cable pic, ``Halloweentown,'' coming up next month, and she has the big-screen ``Christmas Wish,'' in which she plays grandmother to former ``Doogie Howser'' star Neil Patrick Harris, due in December.

Much as she'd like to work more, Debbie says, ``I won't be doing any tacky movies. I read one yesterday I said `no' to. It was a good piece of money, but the mother character was really quite stupid, and it would have made me upset to play her.'' Debbie echoes a growing complaint that too many scripts ``make the mother mean, stupid, drunk, prejudiced or terrible in some other way. Honestly, I have a lot of girlfriends who aren't those kinds of mothers. It's that so many scripts are written by angry men,'' she opines.

Interestingly, Debbie says she doesn't worry too much about profanity in scripts. ``Every role comes with profanity - you just don't say it,'' she insists. ``You just change the words. If they get upset about it, it's almost too late, because they've already hired you.''

Fancy that.

The industry eye

Ron Howard, fresh off of making ``Ed TV,'' which will be released in March, is expected to decide on his next directorial undertaking within the next few weeks. It won't be the James Brown bio-pic with Eddie Murphy, as has been rumored. Even if that project were ready to go, Eddie, who has just finished making ``Bofinger'' for Howard's Imagine Entertainment, already is committed to his next acting assignment - Imagine's ``Nutty Professor II.''

Aw, shut up and play

So, Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee is out of jail, and is trying to generate sympathy for himself, of all things. In an interview with Fox anchor Catherine Crier that airs today, he declares, ``People are saying that I had beaten Pamela. That is not true. Grabbing a woman, and shaking a woman, is not cool, either. But that's what was done.'' I guess we should feel relieved that he does at least put the latter in the uncool league.

Voyage revisited

First, the movie, then the soundtrack album, the second soundtrack album, the tour, the book ... And now, get ready for ``James Cameron's `Titanic' '' - the CD-ROM. It's being produced from Cameron's compendium of ``Titanic'' research material, and they've been casting voice actors to portray real-life ``Titanic'' voyagers for the project.

A differebt tune

Michael Feinstein has been extremely busy with concerts commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of George Gershwin, but the vocalist is finding time for non-Gershwin activities. He's been writing ``a lot,'' he says, including penning songs for the feature documentary about larger-than-life Hollywood comedy writer Bruce Vilanch. ``It's called `Get Bruce,' and I've been told it will be out by Christmas. It's very funny, with a lot of great people in it - Whoopi, Robin, Billy, Bette, all the first-name people.'' (All of whom have used Vilanch material.) And Ann-Margret sings the title song.

Feinstein expects he'll continue interpreting the Gershwin catalog even after the centennial is through. ``Toward the end of my regular shows, I always say I want to do some Gershwin, and there's always a big cheer. I'd be stunned if there wasn't,'' he says. Which reminds Michael of the time rascally George Burns pulled a fast one on Tony Bennett at a big charity concert - conniving with the audience not to react when Bennett started singing his signature song, ``I Left My Heart in San Francisco.'' Bennett arrived a few minutes later, and when he launched into the familiar tune that always generates big applause at his concerts, there was absolute silence.

With reports by Stephanie DuBois.

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

Photo: (1) Debbie Reynolds

``I'll think about that tomorrow''

(2) Ron Howard

Decision pending

(3) Michael Feinstein

Writing a lot