Bergen keeps name out of Emmy ads

GOOD MORNING: Don't look for Candice Bergen's name in any ads for Emmy consideration on "Murphy Brown"-- and don't look for her name among those submitted for Emmy nomination consideration for "Outstanding Lead Actress in a Primetime Comedy Series." It won't be there. (The WB series' name, of course, is in the ads). It's no oversight -- unlike the omission of Tim Allen's name in the 1994 Emmys. The absence of Bergen is her choice. WB TV's Barbara Brogilatti confirmed it's Bergen's wish, ditto Pat Kingsley. The Academy, not wishing to have another cause celebre like Allen, even checked to make sure it wasn't an oversight. Nope. Candy just figured it was time -- after five Emmy wins -- to step aside. Mebbe this will give further credence to her plan to depart the show after this coming season. Bergen is now in front of the cameras in "Tim," Robert Halmi's CBS telefilm in which she is in love with a younger man with slight mental retardation (played by Tom McCarthy). The 1979 "Tim" movie based on Colleen McCullough's book starred Piper Laurie with -- Mel Gibson as the retarded young man ... And "Spellbound" is coming back to the bigscreen -- but only returning are the title and the Miklos Rozsca theme of the 1945 Ingrid Bergman-Gregory Peck starrer. Oscar-winning producer Walter Mirisch is readying an Eric Harlacher script about an amnesia victim for the Bubble Factory. Mirisch is also readying the bigscreener of Elmore Leonard's "La Brava" for Universal with Buck Henry scripting. Mirisch, longtime friend of author Leonard, had tried, long ago, to get his "Get Shorty" made. "I gave it to all the companies," says Mirisch, but was turned down by 'em all. We know what later happened with Danny DeVito and Jersey Films and "Shorty." Mirisch is also active on the TV front with Liz Carpenter's book "Unplanned Parenthood" for USA Cable. Dalene Young is writing the script of the story of how Carpenter was left to take care of her late brother's three teenagers when she, Carpenter, was 70 ... And Lee Rose is readying "The Hand Off" about a woman who finds her niece and nephew abandoned at her door. Stockard Channing and Stephen Collins co-star. Rose assembled his same team from last year's successful "A Mother's Prayer."

WITH JODIE FOSTER SUING PROPAGANDA in re "The Game," Michael Douglas, who was to star, took off for Scotland for some golf. And you thought it was easy to make a movie? ... Nanscy Neiman departs as head of Mandalay Publishing at month's end. It's amicable, she says. "I was hired to do a certain thing and circumstances didn't allow it to happen." Formerly at Warner Books, Neiman will announce her new publishing affiliation in a month ... Next season's "The Parent 'Hood" will include subjects as thought-provoking as the past season's "I'm O'Tay, You're O'Tay," seg (submitted for Emmy's President's Award), promises Robert Townsend, creator, exec producer, star of the WB Network series -- which has a 22-seg pickup. One show, he tells me, will have him, as college teacher, reviewing movies. He turns down one, by a black moviemaker, "because it contains the 'N' word," says Townsend. "Sometimes, stuff comes out by African-American (filmmakers) who don't want to be criticized for it." Townsend knows he may be opening up a hornet's nest, but feels it's the product, not the filmmaker, that must be noted. "I think it will say a lot in a positive way, and TV and the WB Network allow us to take chances." He's now directing the New Line comedy "B.A.P.s" ("Black American Princesses") with Halle Berry, Martin Landau and Natalie Desselle. Townsend says of Berry in this pic, "She's the female Jackie Chan!" Townsend had Berry watch Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett shows before starting.

ED ASNER AND MARY TYLER MOORE together again? Asner's readying "Payback," an ABC telepic with his banner and Patchett/Kaufman. Ed tells me he's "looking forward" to Mary starring in the highly dramatic story in which she becomes a marked woman after reporting police brutality. Asner plays the internal affairs investigator ... The first woman to be honored by the B'Nai Brith Intl. since Eleanor Roosevelt, is "Barney's" creator Sheryl Leach. She receives their Distinguished Achievement Award June 25 at N.Y.'s Hilton. Of course, Barney will be there -- in white tie and tail(s). Never-before-seen footage of "Barney" will be screened. Leach, a former Dallas schoolteacher who created the purple tyrannosaurus rex in 1988 in her search for nonviolent children's programming, has Disney/ABC Cable Net's Geraldine Laybourne, Hasbro's Alan G. Hassenfeld and Michael Goldstein of Toys R Us as her dinner chairs. Leach has moved to Greenwich, Conn., to be closer to N.Y. to expand into family shows -- features as well as TV. "Barney's" bigscreen bow is still in the works ... Don Rickles' spots for Comedy Central debut at a press luncheon today in the East Room at Carnegie Hall -- Don will miss seeing 'em on the air on the 12th -- that's when he bows live on the stage of the Hall (Carnegie, that is).