MAKING A NAME--HERS--FOR HERSELF

There is no mention in most studio biographies of Jennifer Jason Leigh of her father, the late actor Vic Morrow. If you happen to know about him, fine. If not, she won’t bring up the subject.

“I wanted to make it on my own,” she says, “not trade on a name.”

Well, she’s getting there. In 10 days she’ll fly to the Venice Film Festival for a showing of her movie “Flesh and Blood,” directed by Holland’s Paul Verhoeven (opening here Aug. 30). When she returns, it’s to play the role of a teen-age prostitute in the new Peter Medak movie “The Men’s Club.” And about the time that’s wrapped up, her latest film, “The Hitcher,” in which she stars with Rutger Hauer, should be in release.

Not bad--not bad at all.

At 23, Leigh looks a lot like her late father, who was killed when hit by a falling helicopter during the shooting of a location scene for the film “Twilight Zone-The Movie” three years ago.

“I’ve seen a few of his early movies,” she said the other day, “and I do look like him. Particularly the way he was in his first feature, ‘The Blackboard Jungle.’ ”

Never close to him--her parents separated when she was 2--Leigh grew up with her mother, screenwriter Barbara Turner, and her stepfather, Iranian director Reza Badiyi. And, at 16, she dropped the “Morrow” from her name.

The critics first sat up and took notice when she played an anorexic teen-ager in “The Best Little Girl in the World” on TV. Then came “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” for which she also won good notices--and a lot of media attention when she criticized cuts in the love-making scene that had originally earned the movie an X rating.

“I hate censorship of any sort,” she said firmly. “And that scene was cut to shreds, which was a shame.”

“Flesh and Blood” has also come under the scissors.

“I’m sorry about that, too,” she said. “It is a very violent film, but they not only cut some of the rape scene, they also had to lose some of the love-making scene. I find it so odd that it’s all right to show people being blown to pieces, but not making love.”

“Flesh and Blood,” the final film shown at the Seattle Film Festival this year, is set in Italy during the 16th Century and stars Hauer as the leader of a band of mercenaries and Leigh as a young noblewoman.

In one scene, she is brutally raped by Hauer, with a dozen other people helping him. That scene alone, according to Leigh, required 120 setups.

“It’s a hard scene to watch,” she said. “Brutal and ugly as rape is, I know it’s going to upset a lot of people. But the film is extraordinary. Paul Verhoeven is so gifted--I loved his ‘Soldier of Orange’ ” (which brought Hauer to prominence).

She starts filming “Men’s Club” on Sept. 18, alongside Roy Scheider, Frank Langella, David Dukes, Harvey Keitel and Treat Williams.

“My role is that of Teensy, a prostitute with the face of an angel who works in a house of affection in San Francisco,” she said. “It’s a really marvelous part.”

But in the movie she doesn’t wind up with Dukes--her real-life former boyfriend--as a customer. Instead, she gets Langella.

GREAT ROLE: Many actresses have aspired to play the role of Mother Teresa, who for 50 years has worked among the poor and wretched of Calcutta and six years ago was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Now, it looks as if the part will be played by Oscar-winner Glenda Jackson, with a script by French writer Dominique Lapierre.

“It’s a role,” says her agent, Peter Crouch, “that fascinates her. But she’s tied up until next summer, so nothing can be done till then.”

The film, officially authorized by Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity order, will be shot, of course, in Calcutta. Jackson has never been to India.

QUOTE--From director John Huston, who just turned 79 and does not enjoy good health (he had open-heart surgery in 1977):

“When I was young, I lacked the imagination to realize I would one day have to pay the price for the life I was leading. I’m sure as hell doing that now. . . . “