SEYMOUR LOSES ONE, WINS ONE

“I thought he had a very good English accent,” said Jane Seymour. “I don’t know why they didn’t use it.”

Since the opening this week of Sydney Pollack’s movie “Out of Africa,” in which Robert Redford plays the role of the Oxford scholar and white hunter Denys Finch Hatton, much has been made of the fact that he does not speak like an Englishman. Meryl Streep, playing the role of the Baroness Karen Blixen (who as Isak Dinesen wrote “Out of Africa”), has mastered a Danish accent.

In fact, Redford worked for some time on his English accent and, together with British actress Jane Seymour, filmed several scenes from “Out of Africa” to test it.

Said Seymour this week: “We filmed several scenes here in Los Angeles with Sydney Pollack directing, and I thought Redford’s accent was not bad at all.

“What they were trying to discover, I suppose, is whether he was comfortable using it. All this, of course, was before I knew Meryl Streep was involved and for a while there I thought I might have a chance of playing the role opposite him. And even though he never continued with the accent, I’m delighted I got a chance to work with him.”

According to Pollack, the decision to drop the accent was made just a few days before filming began. “We were concerned that audiences might be thrown by Bob as an Englishman,” he said, “so we forgot about it.”

While Redford and Streep have been the center of attention for their work in the movie, tireless actress Seymour has now been thrown a large-size crumb of consolation. She has been cast in the key role of Natalie Jastrow in the 30-hour ABC network production of Herman Wouk’s “War and Remembrance.” In this huge production almost all her scenes will be with Sir John Gielgud, who plays her uncle, Aaron Jastrow.

“They’ve been testing actresses for this role for months,” she said. “I met with them last week and was told on Wednesday that I have it. It’s a marvelous part; just the kind of thing I’ve wanted to do for ages.”

Seymour leaves for London on Tuesday to spend Christmas there. Ten days later she takes off for France where filming on the miniseries will start Jan. 7 under Dan Curtis’ direction.

“What’s interesting,” she said, “is that since coming here from London 10 years ago I have played far more American parts than I have English ones. (She has just finished another American role in the six-hour ABC miniseries of Danielle Steele’s “Crossings.”) I don’t even think about it anymore. . . .”

NO SEQUEL: “I don’t know how the misunderstanding came about,” said William Peter Blatty, “but it made me laugh a lot.”

In New York the other day it was reported that Blatty, the man who wrote the smash hit novel “The Exorcist,” had come up with a sequel called “Demons 5, Exorcist 0.” It was said that Ellen Burstyn, who starred in the original movie, was considering doing it.

“How anyone could have made such a mistake seeing a title like ‘Demons 5, Exorcist 0’ I can’t think,” Blatty chuckled. “In fact, it’s a comedy sendup revolving around the filming of an occult novel. It’s just a wild comedy. I sent it to Ellen to see if she were interested, but she felt she would be uncomfortable doing it since she’d been in the original.”

Blatty is optimistic that the movie will be made. But even if it isn’t, he’s hardly struggling. He made something like $17 million from “The Exorcist” and his participation in the William Friedkin movie.

SURVIVING: Ali MacGraw, whose acting has survived some strong criticism, has just been in London narrating Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf” for a London Philharmonic Orchestra charity concert at the Festival Hall. It was her first time on a stage before an audience.

Recently the 45-year-old actress has been spending a lot of time in Britain. She was there earlier this year making a new movie with Billie Whitelaw, “Murder Elite,” and she plans to return there next year for another project.

“What I like about working in Britain is that you’re allowed to fail,” she says. “I’d go to London just to read the telephone book . . . .”

DROPPED: Vanessa Williams, who was dropped as Miss America after nude pictures of her appeared in a magazine, was due to make her Broadway bow in Bob Fosse’s new musical, “Big Deal.”

Now she has been dropped from that too.

Fosse, who originally hired her and is doing the script, says she has been “written out.” Why? No explanation.