Daily News from New York, New York • 329

HOLLYWOOD By Marilyn Beck SHIRLEY MACLAINE is set to go before the cameras late this year as star of the ABC miniseries adaptation of "Out on a Limb," her best-selling 63 t. iC AY V'. -A I 1 4 i 'r'r. -oiilii -'llti ntr- "A i. null I i i mimm memoir about her metaphysical quest.

The project is just one of four that producer Stan Margulies is preparing for ABC's 1986 season. All deal with fairly con troversial issues and are. true stories about contemporary women. Being readied for fall production is a miniseries adaptation of Irvinff Mansfield's 1 "Life With Jackie." which will detail the I valiant battle against Carroll Spinney, as Big Bird, enllsta the help of a farm girt to find Aa way home in "Follow That Uird." I'JMmvQ GeaQUzeFG, Use JqqEd GovjE cancer waged by his late wife, novelist Jac-aueline Susann. likelv with Mario Thomas or i Suzanne Pleshette in the lead.

And set to roll in By BRUCE CIIADVVICK Shirley MacLaine IG BIRD, SESAME Street's lovable afoot resident fowl, is, without doubt, one of the most recognizable characters in the coun and befriending everyone, as he always has. "I like to think Big Bird represents the spirit of Sesame Street," said Spinney, "lie's something special wherever he goes. We did a show in China, where no one knew anything about Sesame Street, and the kids just fell in love with Big Bird." Spinney does 110 stories a year for Sesame Street (two a day), the movie and specials. Ill-' records the voices of Bird and Oscar for the live shows that tour the country, but another actor plays Bird in those shows. Spinney, who lives on a farm in Connecticut, has been a puppeteer himself for 40 years, lie loves his work with Jim Henson (creator of Sesame Street and the Muppcts movies), and is looking forward to reaching his 25th anniversary in feathers and beak.

"What we've started to see is the second generation Sesame Street fan," chuckled Spinney. "We've actually met young mothers and fathers who saw the show when they were kids and now watch it again with their own children. To me, that's just amazing. It proves, I think, that this kind of show can go on forever." But Spinney's own three children have feelings about his alter ego. While they are proud of him, they resent the barbs tossed their way.

here comes Big Bird's daughter!" teased a classmate at Spinney's 14 year-old daughter.) Nevertheless, Spinney the actor cannot restrain Spinney the bird. As he rises to leave, he flutters in his very best Big Bird voice that every year-old in America recognizes: "Goooooodbyyyeee. try. But Carroll Spinney, the actor inside Big Bird, is not That suits Spinney just fine. "I don't want to be famous!" he howls when it is suggested that people want to see what the real Big Bird looks like.

(Spinney has never been seen on television or in public in connection with Big Bird.) "No fame, no notoriety, no autographs, no crowds, no dinners, nothing." Spinney, who is 51, 5-feet-10 and has graying hair and a handsome beard, obviously does not look anything like Big Bird, and he doesn't want anyone to know that, especially kids. "There's a magic there that I don't want to mess with. The kids see Big Bird as just that, a big bird. It would dampen their enthusiasm to meet the actor inside," said Spinney, who has been Big Bird (and Oscar the Grouch) for the entire 16 years of Big Bird's life on the Sesame Street television series and once again plays the mellow yellow fowl in a new movie, "Follow That Bird," which opens tomorrow and features Chevy Chase, John Candy and Waylon Jennings. In the film, members of the Feathered Friends Society talk Big Bird into leaving Sesame Street and moving to Illinois.

Unhappy there, he tries to get home at the same time the Sesame Street gang is looking for him. Throughout the film, Big Bird is always looking at the bright side of everything September is the TV movie "To Love, Honor and Arrest," with Mariette Hartley playing the Midwestern wife whose police chief husband had her arrested when she headed an anti-nuke demonstration. THE BIG SCREEN SCENE: Next week will tell whether actors Tom Cruise, Anthony Edwards and Tom Skerrit have the right stuff. The actors are filming Columbia's "Top Gun" on location at the Miramar Naval Base in San Diego, and on Monday will start learning such things as aviation physiology and ejection in preparation for in-flight shooting sequences in F-14s. Edwards, who has appeared most recently in "The Sure Thing" and "Gotcha," says the Navy experience has been enlightening.

"I came down here expecting to see people scrubbing the decks. But this is really an elite base some of the Navy personnel go surfing in the morning and then come to work." The official Navy adviser to the film showed up at a party dressed in a punk outfit, complete with spiked hair. "His admiral," said Edwards, "was not amused ON THE GO: Bob and Heather Urich begin a new chapter in their lives this week as they move with their 3-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son from their San Fernando Valley home to the suburbs of Boston for production of Bob's upcoming Warners' "Spenser for Hire" series for ABC. Bob tells me it was 6-year-old Ryan who made the decision as to the residence in which the family will settle. "We spent a week in the Boston area searching for houses," says the actor.

"We found one place with a tennis court, a pool and stables on eight acres of land. And then we looked at a smaller, two-story home closer to where I'll be shooting, and while we were there we asked the kids which place they liked better. Ryan noticed a blueberry patch and then, down a ravine, a pond where he'll be able to ice skate this winter and said, 'Let's take And they have. The saga of a used-song salesman By DON NELSEN BROADWAY By Pat O'Haire "Parade" presents such a one-dimensional view of people that it's difficult to believe them, even though the show is very well acted and directed. All of the characters are cither unmitigated scoundrels or vacant lunkheads.

I'm well aware that people like this exist, but Dresser's folks are burlesques without any redeeming aspects. However, director Don Scardino and his cast-Pamela Blair, George Gerdes, William Newman, Nada Despotovich, James Lally and, particularly, Larry Block and Keith Reddin have produced such a persuasive ensemble performance that "Parade" marches briskly along, dropping enough sneery laughs to keep an audience upright. THE HIT PARADE. Cenwtfv try Rlctiar Onwr. Wild rml Blair, Larry (lock.

Nana DMPOtovich. Caaraa QrOm. Jama Lallr, William Haw man. KallH Raddln. Sattlna bv DanM Ceawan cattvmaa av Davltf C.

Woolaral; ItvMlna kv 4oHva Dacha artainal music kv Jim Wimi town eamwttaflt, PMI Laa. draeta bv Den tears' Ina tot tha Manhattan Punch Una Tnaatar at Tami Tha tar, W. 7M St. sjrwOU'VE SEEN THE type: a fast talking salesman who tells you that this here watch is Switzerland solid gold. When you express doubt, he counters with well, it actually comes from southern Germany and you know how great those Germans are with cameras.

Broadway Danny Rose was a loser like this. So is Del Bates, an agent in "The Hit Parade" who is plotting the comeback attempt of Bobby Max, a rock singer who almost made it 10 years ago. There is one hitch. Bobby Max isn't Bobby Max. While fans believe Bobby went into self-imposed retirement, he actually pilled out in a suicide.

Bates now is trying to peddle to the public an ex-con car thief who looks something like Max, but can't sing or play guitar. Bates is the essence of the American belief that you can merchandise anything as long as it looks right He's depending on that to sell the bogus Bobby to the rubes in the dead singer's Midwestern hometown. If he can get this gink past the locals, he's home free in the rest of the country. He doesn't count on the citizens of Bedford, to be as venal or devious as he. Now this gives rise to many funny lines, but Richard Dresser's "The flit Parade" is rather thin logically.

'For example, wouldn't Max's fans, who presumably are numerouijenough to." justify a' comeback, see through, the fake immediately I 7 (u i CASTING CALL: All you guys out there who can sing, act and look Eurasian and are between 16 to 18, have I got a job for you! Director Tom O'Horgan is casting his latest musical work-in-progress, "Mowgli Jungle Boy," which is based on Rudyard Kipling's "Jungle Books," and he's stumped for someone to play the lead. If you qualify, O'Horgan will look and listen to you Tuesday at the La Mama Annex, 66 E. Fourth between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. The show has a three-week tryout in Philadelphia next month.

BEG PARDON: Oops! Yesterday we said "Dream-girls" would be closing after this Sunday's matinee. It isn't. It has another week to live, and won't close until after next Sunday's performance at the Imperial. WELCOME BACK: The reggae sounds of Big Youth can be listened to, and danced to, tonight at S.O.B.'s, on Varick St Michael Cimino's upcoming "Year of the Dragon" may be a hit or may be another "Heaven's Gate," but in any case, it will be the first time to see the talented Chinese-American actor John Lone on the big screen (he was in "Iceman," but who could see him under all that grime). He's been known here for quite a while.

He won an Obie for "F.O.B." at the Public Theater, scored again in "Dance and the Railroad" (which he also directed and choreographed, and wiiich David Hwang wrote especially for him), 'thtr 'najth "oiiJ irsH Beauty" and directed "Paper Angels," both Off-Broadway. 7 A 7 tZ 'J i It K. -r lilock the agrnl tiling Bobby Mas (Cerdt; rj.