Beresford burns 'Bridges'

GOOD MORNING: Who said it's easy getting a movie off the ground? Director Bruce Beresford has bowed out of Robert James Waller's bestseller "Bridges of Madison County" for Amblin/WB. That raised the question, would the pic's producer, Steven Spielberg (with Kathleen Kennedy) -- or the pic's star, Clint Eastwood, take over reins? Spielberg was to do it originally, but not now. And Clint has held back agreeing to act in the film until several rewrites have been completed ... Meanwhile, Universal's "The Gold Diggers" starts Friday in Vancouver with another Aussie director at the helm, Kevin Dobson (not the U.S. thesp) taking over from Ted Bessel who departed due to the usual "creative differences." The pic, starring youngsters Anna Chlumsky ("My Girl") and Christina Ricci ("Addams Family"), is described as a "warm, family adventure movie"... Faye Dunaway segues from the bigscreen "Don Juan De Marco and the Centerfold" to NBC's "Love Mother," also filming in Vancouver. "Mother" is another telepic from Citadel Entertainment, which is producing "Cinderella" with Whitney Houston ... LeVar Burton joins CBS' "Christy," bowing as a regular in the fifth seg -- of 13 ordered for this season. (It's co-written by co-star Tyne Daly.) Burton's pact also calls for him to direct one of the one-hour shows for the MTM-Barney Rosenzweig-Eagle Nation series. Burton, fresh from the future world of "Star Trek: Generations," plays the first African-American to come into Tennessee's Smoky Mountains' Cutter Gap in the early 1900s. Burton's also signed a first-look production deal with MTM for feature/TV projects. His producing partner's Julia Roberson. Matthew Lesher of the Marion Rosenberg agency made the multiple Burton deal. Tyne Daly's (and Georg Stanford Brown's) daughter Kathryne Brown is being paged to play Burton's love interest ... Brenda Vaccaro segues from her bigscreen outing with Warren Beatty and Annette Bening in "Love Affair" to NBC's "Sing Me the Blues" starring Ann-Margret with Lee Grant directing the country music backgrounded drama in Nashville ... While Michael Jackson makes the East his home, he still sent for his BevHills doctor to give him his checkup.

FRIDAY NIGHT ON ABC belongs to writer/producers Bill Bickley and Michael Warren now that WB has swept out "Hangin' With Mr. Cooper's" former toppers. The duo have "Family Matters" at 8, "Step by Step" at 9 and now "Mr. Cooper" at 9:30 on ABC. And they've brought in Mark Linn-Baker to direct all the "Cooper" segs. They got him out of the cast of Neil Simon's "Laughter on the 23rd Floor" on B'way. He's directed many other sitcom segs for Bickley and Warren. The season finale will boast a state championship basketball game -- which they'll film on the WB stage! They'll also bring on their mentor ("Happy Days") Garry Marshall to guestar as himself on "Family Matters." This show will also have a seg devoted to gun control -- when a kid brings a gun to school! ... The Santa Monica Freeway heads to the screen: C.C. Myers, a high school dropout who became the head of the engineering firm that repaired the earthquake-damaged freeway in record time -- and won him a $ 14.8 million bonus -- is the subject of the Horatio Alger-type story to be filmed by producers Hal Taines and Donald Markowitz ... Noriyuki "Pat" Morita, who gets his star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame today, says, "I hope it's not between Toshiro Mifune and Mako!" Morita, the star of "The Next Karate Kid," will be congrat'ed by Jerry Weintraub, natch, and Marion Ross of Pat's "Happy Days"... Gene Leavitt, formerly of "Hawaii Five-O" and "Fantasy Island," is off to Hawaii Friday to talk with Brigham Young U. exex and the Polynesian Cultural Center to bring the musical "Stevenson by Heart" to their Oahu boards. Leavitt was inspired to write the play about Robert Louis Stevenson during his time in Western Samoa. Peter Matz musicked and Kelly Hamilton lyricked.

THE NATIONAL COALITION Against Domestic Violence board of directors named Abbe Lane as their spokesperson. Abbe tells me she plans to speak for the group about her own experiences (with Xavier Cugat) camouflaged in her novel "But Where is Love?," now headed for B'way (with a new title) ... Bill Wellman Jr. is exec producing a docu about his dad, the late great director "Wild Bill" Wellman. Among those participating who worked in Wellman pix: Bob Mitchum, Buddy Rogers, Jim Garner, Bob Stack, Tom Laughlin, Darryl Hickman, Howard Keel, plus Joe Youngerman and Dottie Wellman. Ken Carlson is line producer, Todd Robinson directs ... Frank Mancuso, Suzanne De Passe, Ann Miller and Donald O'Connor will be dinner chairs at the Sept. 20 BevHilton Multicultural Motion Picture Awards ceremonies honoring Diahann Carroll.