DATE: Sunday, June 1, 1997                  TAG: 9705310118

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E16  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   68 lines

RUSSO MEETS HAIRIEST LEADING MAN

AFTER co-starring with the likes of Mel Gibson, John Travolta, Clint Eastwood and Kevin Costner, Rene Russo is next appearing with a gorilla.

``Well, you don't have to put it quite that way,'' Russo laughed as she sank back in the chair. ``But,'' she added, after a moment of thought, ``it's true.''

After a string of hits that made her one of the more visible actresses in the film industry, what does she choose for her solo starring vehicle? A monkey movie, ``Buddy,'' which is opening Friday .

She has held her own opposite Gibson in both ``Lethal Weapon 3'' and ``Ransom,'' Eastwood in ``In the Line of Fire,'' Travolta in ``Get Shorty,'' Dustin Hoffman in ``Outbreak'' and Costner in ``Tin Cup.''

Russo grew up in Burbank, Calif., and was literally ``discovered'' by a photographer at age 18 at a Rolling Stones concert. She promptly moved to New York and became a top model for the Ford Agency, gracing the cover of just about every fashion magazine during the '70s and '80s.

In the true-life story of ``Buddy,'' Russo stars as eccentric socialite Gertrude (Trudy) Lintz, a woman who raised animals in her upstate New York mansion. Her home included championship Briard dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs, tropical fish, geese, rare pigeons, horses, two horned owls, three snakes and a kitten.

And then there was Buddy.

Buddy was a gorilla she raised from infancy. He wore tailor-made clothes from Bergdorf Goodman. He was taught table manners, how to play croquet, mix martinis, do light housework and say his prayers. He became the star of Chicago's 1933 World's Fair. Then he grew up.

``Yes, I purposefully volunteered for this movie,'' Russo said as she sat in the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. ``And I'm not even an animal person. I don't have a real rapport with animals. I mean, I LIKE the good ones. You know, not the snakes, but I wouldn't say I was truly into it. It's just that Trudy is such a good role. She's an Auntie Mame part, and those parts are hard to get.''

In attempting to explain her choice, Russo said ``you should see the scripts I turned down. I call them Satan scripts. You know the type.''

``I didn't see this as a solo choice,'' she said. ``It just happened not to have a leading man.''

It did, however, have chimpanzees.

``They were treated like royalty,'' she said. ``They had breaks for diaper changes. They had breaks for naps. I thought, `When is my nap break?' ''

``The chimps would literally be under my dress,'' she said, laughing. ``When they'd run to hide, they thought under my dress was the best place to hide. It was a quite, shall we say, unpredictable set.''

Buddy was primarily played by an animatronic being that could be controlled. ``We knew that no gorilla could be found to play the part. It had to be done this way,'' the actress said. ``Perhaps my toughest scene was holding this baby Buddy and doing an emotional scene with him. He was this rubber thing. It takes some mind disciplining to play to that.''

She liked the 1920s clothes assigned to her as Buddy's mistress. ``They're a help in getting outside this world and into the very strange world of Trudy.''

She's most proud of the scene in which she lets out an animal call to her menagerie - a call that would be the envy of both Tarzan AND Carol Burnett.

``I improvised it,'' she said. ``The script just said something like `Trudy calls the animals.' I was given my best review when all the dogs in the neighborhood started howling in answer. We had to stop filming until they quieted down.''

So who kisses better, Buddy or Mel Gibson?

``I'm not even going in that direction,'' she laughed. ``Don't expect an answer. I wouldn't want to hurt the feelings of either one.'' KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY MOVIES

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