Daily News from New York, New York • 14

SET odd Dddd fiw- "SCo usiir. if ftGil flgBBDSfe ruce Willis and Richard Cere may be pitted against each is J' I other in a remake of "The Day of the Jackal. 1 1 In the rewritten version of Fred Zinnemann's 1973 sus-LJ pense classic, Willis would play a professional assassin kt, 1 Pf 4 who targets a politician bound for the Gere would be the Imprisoned IIIA terrorist tapped by taw enforcers to head otT Willis before he can pull the trtwer (The original flick had I playing the sniper where he's sifting through transcripts from 450 interviews. He's not worried. He vouches that his 1,000 Tiles already hold several scoops.

What did he think of Oliver Stone's "He got some things wrong," Summers says, "and some things more right than his researchers could have known." A NERVOUS WRECK recruited by French right-wingers to Bruce Willis Meg Ryan Richard Gere Miiutl harlr dc (iaulle.) Hot newcomer Mittthew Mi t'onauithry was originally slated for the IIIA part. Rut Universal sources Off-Broadway next fall, is an imaginary confrontation between Eugene O'Neill and Chaplin back when the comic wanted to marry the playwright's 17-year-old daughter, Oona. nay that ones Gere showed interest, the actor stepped aside. Trouble is, authentic Irishman I. lam hyenas at bay: "I'm boring." The Artist Formerly Known as Prince, the Knick currently known as Anthony Mason and the Egyptian basketball player now and forever known as Alaa Abdelnaby, leaving a $425 tip at Caroline's Comedy Club Tuesday night Wherefore art thou, Andre Braugher? The actor, who plays Henry Nrrwin may now have his eye on the role Willis and Gere are both said to Best-selling mystery writer Mary Iliggins Clark thought she was headed "from the gossip page to the obit page in one easy lesson" when the car she was riding in was hit recently.

The author of "The Cradle Will Fall" says she and her friends were driving I- keen to work with director Michael With Baird Jones C'aton-Junes, who also worked with Nee son on 'Hob Hoy." KM agent Kd l.lmalo, who reps both Neeson and in Shakespeare in the Park, was feeling his way through Herald Square with a tourist map. Gere, should have his work cut out for hi in. PENNING A TRICKY up the West Side Highway, "laughing about how lucky we were to get out of the city before rush hour," when "we were blind-sided by a BMW sedan going full speed." Clark said her car spun around and ended up blocking the 57th St entrance. Rather than jump out and help the DICKTIONARY The man who found a cocktail dross J. Fdgar Hoover's closet is now sift-ni' through the ashes of Richard INCIDENTALLY Rupert Murdoch offered to double Larry King's million-plus salary if he'd leave CNN for Fox, King reveals in Psychology Today.

King, whose CNN contract runs through 1999, says he turned down the offer because of his allegiance to Ted Turner. Watch for a bio on Elizabeth Dole that will make Liddy envy the treat Ninon's life. Biographer Anthony Mummers has kept the project hush-hush, but for close to a year he has tu rn working on a book about 1 1 is Trickiness that Viking Tress hopes will be a blockbuster. Tim; rrra -J Xftt After books by Woodward and Bernstein, assorted Watergate mem 61 -year-old lady, some gridlocked commuters shouted at her. "I couldn't believe the obscenities.

Finally, after a half an hour of abuse and car honking, someone had the intelligence to get out and help push us out of the way." The author, whose car was totaled, was rushed to Roosevelt Hospital. "The next day, every part of my body hurt, but miraculously I suffered no injury." She's going ahead with plans to marry businessman John Conheeny. "I asked my fiance if he would have romantically put the ring on my corpse. He replied that he would have taken the ring and gotten a refund." MEG SHOWS COURAGE oirs, a three-volume life by Stephen Ambrose, not to mention the works of KN himself, hat's left to say about Ninon? 'Ask me that in two years time, laughs Summers, speaking from his home in Ireland, ment Hillary has been getting. Insiders say the owners of the Concord Hotel are close to a deal to sell the venerable Catskills resort Likely buyers: the Oneida Indians, who reportedly want to open a casino there.

Concord boss Jimmy Parker denies negotiations are afoot. DreamWorks wants Denzel Washington bad. The studio has offered to let Washington direct and star in a film of his choosing, Variety reports. Washington also is considering "Shields Green and the Gospel of John Brown," in which he'd play an emancipated slave who joins abolitionist John Brown, who'll be played by Harrison Ford. UNDER FIRE Don't mess with Meg Ryan.

The star of "Courage Under Fire" showed amazing grit when she fended oil a mugger on a past trip to New York. "I got very angry at this Ryan tells Jesse Nash in an interview on CompuServe WOW! "I thought, 'He's either going to slit my throat, or he's going to rape me, and I I'm going to be in therapy for years. Bleep I just took my head, and I smashed it into his stomach, and we Playing Charlie Chaplin had mixed results for strung-out and recently busted Robert Downey Jr. But that isn't stopping "Another World" star Charles Keating from aping the Little Tramp in "Everybody Smile." The play, due 1 fought I was so stunned at myself. I was just furious that someone would think that he could be in charge of me that way." Newly empowered, Ryan says she and hubby Dennis (Juaid sometimes think, we should live in New Then we get there and it's so humid and horrible and the murders.

But it happens everywhere." SURVEILLANCE "Multiplicity" stars Michael Keaton and Andie MacDowell, upstairs at Le Colonial. I i' i "Kansas City star Miranda Richardson, at the Water Club, sharing her secret for keeping tabloid STEVE SANDS Jennifer Anlston chats with boyfriend Tate Donovan (above) and alights from auto during filming of "Picture Perfect." Richard Nixon 1 i i ii 1 Til in.