Guess You Really Can Call Demi A Living Doll

It hasn’t been easy getting “G.I. Jane,” the new Demi Moore movie about a woman trying to make it as a Navy SEAL, to the big screen.

There was a hassle with Hasbro, maker of the G.I. Joe action figure, over the film’s name, which producers ended up paying to use.

And the Navy didn’t exactly go overboard to help, denying filmmakers permission to use its bases, personnel or equipment, although Moore was allowed to observe SEAL exercises.

“We felt that the script we reviewed didn’t reflect today’s military,” Rear Adm. Kendell Pease, the Navy’s chief of information, told the Washington Times. “Our objective, when we give cooperation with a film is realism.”

For starters, there’s that title: G.I., which is an abbreviation for “general issue,” is used to refer to Army soldiers, not Navy “swabbies.”

Loose talk

Brendan Fraser (“George of the Jungle”), on the difference between Hollywood executives and wild animals: “They’re both pretty frightening. But the animals steal your scenes.”

Life’s a marathon, then your tootsies get tired

Dustin Hoffman turns 60 today.

In theaters, he always feels like he’s being watched

It wasn’t a complete stretch for Mel Gibson to play a paranoid, maniacal cab driver in his new flick, “Conspiracy Theory.” As he tells Newsweek: “I know what it’s like to feel paranoid. I’ve had my phone bugged. I have people who want star gossip. They follow you around, stake you out. They eavesdrop on your life. It’s not always so nice.”

So, now, the acting is real, but the kissing isn’t?

Gibson’s co-star, Julia Roberts, admits to tweaking the script so they would have more kissing scenes. “I always want more,” Roberts says. “Put me and Mel in a movie, and people are going to be waiting for a little smoochie.” However, she adds: “I hope people realize the value of the reality we give them rather than waiting to see us smooch.”

When it comes to race, sometimes you just can’t win

Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan reportedly backed out of a movie with Wesley Snipes for racial reasons. In “Confucius Brown,” the African American Snipes was cast as Chan’s long-lost, half-Jamaican, half-Chinese cousin. But Chan supposedly had second thoughts, fearing Asian moviegoers would be bothered by the interracial relationship.

Like we said, Bob, race can really get you in trouble

Robert Redford has been fined $70 for doing 55 mph in a 35 mph zone while speeding to the set of his new movie, “The Horse Whisperer,” being filmed on location near Livingston, Mont.

We think of it as meeting an untimely endorsement

Legendary actor Robert Mitchum may be gone, but his voice lives on - in TV ads for Pontiac minivans, the Oppenheimer Fund and red meat. “He didn’t die a tragic death,” a National Cattlemen’s Beef Association spokesman told Entertainment Weekly, “and he does have an enormous appeal for consumers.”

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Compiled by staff writer Rick Bonino