Pregnant Roseanne polishes standup on side

GOOD MORNING: Although expecting her baby (to be named Buck) in August, Roseanne is working Monday nights doing standup at LunaPark. Howcum? She says she's readying a one-hour Carnegie Hall comedy concert stand -- Feb. 13. "I'm experimenting with material," she explained, "while I have the time." When the baby arrives (her fifth), Roseanne says she'll be busy with those maternal duties plus her own TV series and other shows like "Absolutely Fabulous"... She is not yet certain when she returns to work on her own series --"It depends on how I feel." However, she assures she'll do a full season (her last). And yes, a baby, not hers, will be a part of the show. Sounding great, Roseanne admits only one thing is bugging her -- that continues to be -- her ex, Tom Arnold, who, she says, wants a $20 million divorce settlement. "It's unbearable," she admits, "I sometimes wonder if I'll make it -- but I will win!" Roseanne has signed publicist Marieah Leslie, whose clients include two other busy actors, Tim Allen and Jim Carrey ..."I hope it will be therapeutic for the race problem," Robert Duvall told me. He plays a half-white southerner in United Artists' "A Family Thing" and James Earl Jones is his half-brother. Duvall's character discovers his natural mother was a black woman raped by his father -- she died giving birth to him. Duvall also produces the pic with Todd Black and Randa Haines; Richard Pearce directs the original screenplay by Tom Epperson and Billy Bob Thornton. Duvall's company, Butcher's Run, produces with Haines-Black and "Family" will be made for $ 14 million -- with Duvall working "for a lot less than I usually work for." He's done it before -- in "Something to Talk About" with Julia Roberts and in Clint Eastwood's "The Stars Fell on Henrietta." However, Duvall admits, "We're all well-paid anyhow!"

ALTHOUGH MICHAEL JACKSON SAYS he intends to include a disclaimer about his choice of words in all "HIStory" albums not shipped, it is unfortunate that disclaimer will not be seen or heard on videos or heard when played on radio. The Wiesenthal Center's Rabbi Marvin Hier admits of Jackson's disclaimer, "It's not a perfect solution -- the perfect solution would have been to replace the two sentences -- four words." So replace 'em, Michael. Almost every caller here about the album asked, Where were all of Michael's advisers when he was readying to record these lyrics? If Michael was innocent of their evil, the more adult members of Jackson's team certainly were well aware ... Monty Hall and MTV may seem a strange team -- but the music net saw him as perfect to play a gameshow host in a fantasy sequence for an MTV short with the femme group TLC. He hosts a fantasy game, "What's He Really Saying?" whose premise is -- what does a guy really mean when he approaches a lady with a "line"... Aussie thrush Kylie Minogue, who has sold 22 million records, is off to London to record another, having wound "Bio-Dome" with Pauly Shore and Stephen Baldwin. En route she stopped in N.Y. to talk with CBS about their "Central Park West" series. Minogue , who also starred with Jean-Claude Van Damme in "Street Fighter," plans to make the U.S. her base ... Christine Lahti said goodbye as she, husband-director Thomas Schlamme, their 6-year-old son and 2-year-old twins left for Umbria in central Italy for the summer. She hasn't seen much of the family this year, having wound a stand at the Taper with Richard Dreyfuss in "3 Hotels," directed and starred in a Showtime short film, "Lieberman in Love," and wound the feature "Weekend in the Country" (formerly "Temecula"), "Pie in the Sky" with John Goodman and a dual role in Disney Channel's "The Four Diamonds." Lahti was happy to break out of the heavy dramatix for these pics after the legiter. Husband Schlamme next will direct/produce five of the 10 Tracey Ullman HBO spex.

THE ONLY NETWORK TELEPIC TO WIN a National Educational Assn. Award for the Advancement of Learning Through Broadcasting is "Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story" starring Glenn Close and Judy Davis. Producer Craig Zadan adds, "Even though the NBC Huntsville, Ala., affiliate chose to black out the kiss between Close and Davis." The web received more than 6,000 voice approvals and 300 complaints. The award will be presented June 30 in Minneapolis. Now readying "Cinderella" to star Whitney Houston at CBS, Zadan tells me the cast will be mixed, "color-blind." And the Rodgers & Hammerstein Foundation OK'd the addition of other R&H songs from the catalog as well as Rodgers & Hart. Not songs like those from "Oklahoma" or "South Pacific," of course, for "Cinderella," a"fairytale kingdom story with contemporary values"... Although playwright Dale Wasserman was happy his new musical "Western Star" was a sellout at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center, he was saddened it could not be extended because -- some of his key performers had to leave for the Long Beach production of "Man of La Mancha"-- by Wasserman!