SWOOSIE KURTZ’S SPELL OF FAME

You’d think by now they’d have learned to spell her name right--after all, she’s been getting rave notices from critics for the last 10 years--but no. Swoosie Kurtz more often than not winds up in print as Swoozie Kurts.

No matter, perhaps. This bubbling redhead, whose New York apartment is littered with awards--Tonys, Emmys and Obies--is finally making her mark in movies. And at least they get her z and s in the right order.

It’s taken time. Her small but plum role as a hooker in “The World According to Garp” charmed the critics, and many felt that she stole the film “Against All Odds” with her performance as a gutsy secretary.

And now she’s co-starring with Goldie Hawn in “First and Goal,” directed by Michael Ritchie. Side by side, she looks rather like Hawn as seen through layers of cellophane, so it’s no surprise they’ve rewritten the script and changed her role from friend to sister.

“The script’s been filled out a lot,” she said the other day. “Now it’s really good.”

Just after she said yes to Goldie, she was offered the key role in John Hughes’ “Pretty in Pink” and nearly tore out her hair with frustration. Knowing the part was that of an outrageous woman, she dolled herself up, high heels and miniskirt, to read for it. In the taxi en route to see Hughes, the cabbie asked her for a date--that’s how interesting she looked. “Never happened before,” she said.

She always makes an effort when she goes up for a movie. “A lot of producers consider it insulting to ask a known actress to read,” she said. “But I want to. Otherwise how can they tell?

“Not long ago, a director took me to lunch in a Mexican restaurant that was so dark we couldn’t see each other, then told my agent I wasn’t aggressive enough for his film. I thought what was I supposed to do? Fling stuff about and yell at the waiter?”

In New York, where she is a cherished stage actress--Lanford Wilson’s “Fifth of July” earned her a battery of awards--she has just spent 10 months working with Michael Bennett on a musical for next year, “Scandal.”

This required some kissing scenes with Treat Williams, her co-star, and at first she held back. Not because she didn’t consider him kissable, but she was embarrassed that she smelled of garlic. “I eat it all the time,” she said, “so I never get colds.” When she told Williams the reason, he said, “But honey, I eat it too. Kiss away.”

Kurtz loves New York but she’s growing fond of California too. Though not for the sun--”I can’t take it,” she said. “If I as much as walk to the car without protection, I’ll turn into a blond. So I’m slinking about the studio with a big white hat on. Friends laugh, because when I’m on vacation, my head is so wrapped up in towels that I look like Lawrence of Arabia.”

LESS GRAPHIC: “At previews, the opening murder scene--only 40 seconds--so horrified audiences that they just couldn’t concentrate on the rest of the film,” said director Richard Marquand, whose “The Jagged Edge” with Glenn Close and Jeff Bridges opens Oct. 4. “So I had to cut it in half. It’s still pretty chilling.”

“The Jagged Edge” has turned Marquand (director of “The Eye of the Needle” and the last of the “Star Wars” trilogy, “Return of the Jedi”) into a Glenn Close admirer.

“I consider her the best American actress working today,” he said.

In the movie, she plays an attorney called in to defend a prominent man accused of the brutal murder of his wife. She takes the case only when she has satisfied herself that he’s innocent--and then proceeds to fall in love with him. Then, during the trial, evidence surfaces to suggest the man is indeed guilty.

“That’s what makes it an interesting story,” said Marquand the other day. “She’s taken a moral position and is suddenly faced with the realization that the man may actually have done it.”

Marquand says he found previewing the film very useful. “Unfortunately, previews used to be directors’ tools; now they’ve become studio tools--not to decide on possible cuts, but to decide whether there’s even an audience for the movie. I find that dismaying.”

QUOTE--Lauren Bacall, in London starring in Tennessee Williams’ play, “Sweet Bird of Youth”: “My personal life is arid. When I’m alone in the evenings, I read and watch television. . . . “