WORKING FOR SCALE KIRSTIE ALLEY GETS A RISE OUT OF HOLLYWOOD WHILE DROPPING POUNDS IN SHOWTIME'S 'FAT ACTRESS'.

Byline: Valerie Kuklenski Staff Writer

PHOTOGRAPHERS who on another occasion might capture her scarfing a Danish for tabloid publication were inside a Hollywood club, snapping away at Kirstie Alley.

It was OK, though. She was dolled up and dancing at the premiere party for her new series with the title few in this town would be caught dead headlining - ``Fat Actress.''

It's a fictionalized look at Alley's life as a has-been leading lady of TV and movie comedies who wants a little respect even though she's tipping the scales at 200-plus pounds. She expects a broadcast network sitcom deal while her agent presses her to consider a Jenny Craig endorsement offer.

In the comedy series, which has a tight outline and improvised dialogue, Alley is supported (and enabled in her bad habits) by Bryan Callen and Rachael Harris as her assistants, Michael McDonald as her agent, and some high-profile guest stars as themselves, including John Travolta, Kid Rock, NBC chief Jeff Zucker and Melissa Gilbert.

At the premiere party, Alley bounced a friend's infant in the air to a techno-pop tempo. ``She's gonna eat the baby!'' one partygoer said, out of the star's earshot.

Not unless he has ``Jenny Craig'' tattooed on his cute little behind. She's been good - very, very good - since her broad beam was filmed for ``Fat Actress.'' She's not yet down to her ``Cheers'' fighting weight, but she has shed nearly 20 pounds and is on a mission to hit 140.

During a phone interview a couple of days earlier, she was savoring a lunch of turkey, potatoes and green beans from the weight-loss plan she touts in commercials, and she raved about the program's pasta dishes, desserts and cheese curls as if she were being paid by the adjective.

Alley had the idea for a show centered on an overweight star, and her agent teamed her up with another client, ``7th Heaven'' executive producer and sitcom veteran Brenda Hampton, to flesh it out, so to speak. They took their concept to Robert Greenblatt, Showtime's entertainment president.

``Time was of the essence because I didn't plan on staying fat this long,'' Alley said. ``They wanted it the second we pitched it, but they couldn't pick it up right then.''

She sent boxes of doughnuts to Greenblatt as a nudge. He ordered seven episodes, without the customary pilot, as stipulated by Alley.

``I look at the best scenario and the worst scenario,'' she explained. ``Worst scenario is they do a pilot and decide they don't like it, but it's all over town that I've done a pilot called 'Fat Actress.'

``So best scenario is that they had faith in it up front and that they could see the arc of it with or without a pilot and that they made that happen. And they did that. They came up to the plate.''

Alley praised Showtime for giving Hampton and her a good deal of creative license, allowing for a funny sex scene in the first episode and casual use of the F word.

Alley's character is childless, but her 12-year-old son, William Stevenson, plays a neighbor who passes time at her home and then sells dirt on her to tabloids. It's a wink (and maybe a one-finger salute) to publications that caused her some misery over the past couple of years, printing unflattering photos with headlines saying she tipped the scales at 320 when she swears her peak was 207.

Kelly Preston plays a guru to the stars in sudden weight loss whose suggestions include bulimic purging (``use something pretty, like a Montblanc pen''), eating cigarettes for their toxins, chasing a meal with laxatives, and seeking a gastrointestinal disease.

``That one's actually true,'' Alley said. ``If you go online you can buy parasites. I'm not kidding. It's sick. What does she tell me? 'Go to a Third World country and lick someone.' ''

Those outrageously unhealthy suggestions held a ring of truth for members in circuit training at Curves health club in Tarzana.

``Does it say, 'Do not try this at home?' '' said Julie Uglesich of Tarzana.

Uglesich and Mindy Weiss of Woodland Hills said they expect they'll find ``Fat Actress'' entertaining. They related to the extreme distress Alley shows after weighing herself and to her coping with it by overeating.

Uglesich guessed that some overweight viewers might not be so accepting of the show's darkly comedic take on a problem that often causes low self-esteem or depression.

``I think that it being on Showtime kind of excuses it, because it's just an extreme channel,'' she said.

Viewer feedback was one consideration for Greenblatt. ``I don't think I first worry about what people are going to think, but in this case I think it's a sensitive issue to some degree.

``We did ponder it a bit because it was so audacious,'' he said. ``The concept was so attention-getting. We thought, let's try it. (Alley) was the one with the most to lose. She was the one who was putting it on the line.''

The most to lose, indeed. What happens in a second season if the star of ``Fat Actress'' is barely zaftig?

``They knew going into it that my intention was to get thin,'' Alley said. ``But then of course there would be other problems, because all good comedies are based on things going wrong, not things going right.

``So it would be all this accumulation of different kinds of problems that I would have. Like right now all I'm thinking about is fat and work. If you get skinny, then you think everything is going to go your way and, of course, it never does.''

But at least for now, things are going Alley's way. ``I'm having the time of my life. I have zero complaints.''

Valerie Kuklenski, [phone]

valerie.kuklenski(at)dailynews.com

FAT ACTRESS

What: Kirstie Alley's fictionalized comedy about her struggles with pounds and perceptions in weight-conscious Hollywood.

Where: Showtime.

When: 10 p.m. Monday.

Scenery chewing

One might expect a calorie-rich groaning board at the premiere party of a show that portrays overeating with such abandon, but the ``Fat Actress'' menu at the Geisha House was spicy skewers of beef and skinless chicken and morsels of sushi.

The party at the Television Critics Association gathering in January was another matter. Twinkies, Ho-Hos, macaroni and cheese. Pretty much the Thigh Master manufacturer's dream.

Alley says the craft service table during filming of the series held the usual fare caterers put out to cure between-meal munchies - cookies, cakes, candy.

``I think it's just your typical craft service mentality, which is everybody wants to eat junk,'' Alley said. ``If ('Fat Actress') goes again, I might like two tables: that kind of table and the appropriate table for people who don't want to die at age 40.''

- V.K.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Tall All of me, says `Fat Actress' Kirstie Alley

(2 -- color) Kirstie Alley savors the moment at the premiere party for her new Showtime series.

Alberto Rodriguez(copyright)Berliner Studio/BEImages

Box:

Scenery chewing (see text)