REDGRAVE’S BOYCOTT BITES BACK

Vanessa Redgrave’s unsuccessful attempt to create a British actors’ boycott of Israel has led one of her American employers to declare a boycott on her.

“I will never work with Vanessa Redgrave again,” said an emphatic Linda Yellen, who has produced two TV movies starring Redgrave, including the just completed “Second Serve.” “I feel absolutely betrayed.”

Yellen said she was with Redgrave in London up until 10 days ago but was unaware of Redgrave’s boycott petition until she returned to Los Angeles with several of the other principals of “Second Serve.”

“She said nothing about it to any of us,” Yellen said. “In fact, she was very specific in wanting me to be with her for a couple of interviews so journalists would not ask political questions.”

Redgrave and 37 of her colleagues signed a petition asking England’s Council of Actors Equity to request its members not to accept work in Israel. The 48-year-old actress was also reportedly attempting to deny to Israel the use of completed television and film productions involving Equity players.

The motion, made Monday by Redgrave’s brother Colin, was defeated.

“Passing it (the resolution) is not the issue,” said Yellen, who took much of the heat five years ago for casting Redgrave in the role of concentration camp survivor Fania Fenelon in “Playing for Time.” “It is just abhorrent in this age where terrorism is a daily reality that Vanessa is using the forum she developed as an actress to spout these hateful political ideas.”

Yellen acknowledged that she is concerned that “Second Serve,” in which Redgrave portrays transsexual tennis player Renee Richards, will be caught in the emotional fallout from Redgrave’s latest anti-Israel gesture.

“Renee Richards’ successful struggle (she won legal acceptance as a woman from the U.S. Supreme Court) is a fine example of the freedoms we’re entitled to in this country,” Yellen said. “I would hate to have Vanessa’s portrayal perverted, or stand for something else, because of the positions she chooses in real life.”

Yellen said she has always found Redgrave’s political views “repugnant,” but supported her in the past on grounds of artistic and political freedom.

“But here, she is saying that others aren’t entitled to the same freedoms,” Yellen said.

Yellen said her experience with Redgrave reminds her of the story of a turtle who was asked to give an asp a ride across a pond.

At first, the turtle refused, saying the asp could kill him with a single bite. But he finally agreed after the snake pointed out that if he bit him, they would both die.

Halfway across the pond, of course, the asp struck. As they were both about to die, the turtle asked the snake why he did it.

“It’s just my nature,” said the asp.

“Vanessa could only have been enlightened and sympathetic after playing Fenelon,” Yellen said, completing the analogy. “But I guess it’s just her nature.”

CANNON BALL: Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, whose Cannon Group has been the source of a lot of snobbish Hollywood humor in recent years, must be having a pretty good laugh themselves this week.

The lineup of films selected for competition in next month’s Cannes Film Festival was announced in Paris Wednesday and three of them--Robert Altman’s “Fool for Love,” Andrei Konchalovsky’s “Runaway Train” and Franco Zeffirelli’s “Otello”--are Cannon productions.

“Fool for Love” and “Runaway Train,” both released in the United States last year, are official American productions, while the just-completed “Otello” is technically a West German-Italian co-production.

Two other American films will be in the official Gold Palm competition. They are Martin Scorsese’s “After Hours,” released here last summer by Warner Bros., and “Down by Law,” an independent production directed by James Jarmusch.

Jarmusch’s last film, the low-budget “Stranger Than Paradise,” was one of the hits of the Directors Fortnight series in Cannes two years ago and eventually was named the best American film of 1984 by the National Society of Film Critics.

Non-competition screenings are also scheduled for Steven Spielberg’s “The Color Purple,” Woody Allen’s “Hannah and Her Sisters” and Roman Polanski’s “Pirates,” which will be released in the United States later this year by the new De Laurentiis Entertainment Group.

ADD CANNON: People driving by Cannon Films’ new office building at San Vicente and Wilshire boulevards just east of Beverly Hills are getting a preview of the Cannon presence in Cannes. The building has suddenly blossomed with billboards and poster boards promoting the Charles Bronson action film “Murphy’s Law.”

Three years ago, Cannon’s Menahem Golan was unceremoniously dumped from the Cannes film jury, reportedly at the insistence of an executive from another American company. Golan threatened to sue the festival organizers and won a public apology, then he returned the next year boasting his own “Cannon Film Festival.”

The Carlton Hotel, where Cannon lodges each year, has been plastered each year since with Cannon billboards. With Cannon’s idiosyncratic production schedule--which other company would simultaneously promote coming productions of “King Lear” and “It Ate Cleveland”?--the Carlton has been quite a sight.

NO RAMBO: Sylvester Stallone will not be putting his handprints in concrete at Cannes next month after all. A spokesman for Stallone said threats of terrorism (it’s hard to imagine a more symbolic target than Rambo-Rocky) had nothing to do with the decision to stay home.

“He’s working on ‘Cobra,’ and there is simply no time for him to go,” said the spokesman.

“Cobra,” in which Stallone plays an urban cop stalking a serial killer, will be released in the United States by Warner Bros. on May 23, four days after the Cannes festival ends.

AD LIB: The old title was apparently too hot for the print and broadcast media to handle in advertising, so Tri-Star Pictures has changed the name of--dare we say it?--”Sexual Perversity in Chicago.”

The movie, adapted from David Mamet’s Obie-award-winning play about a young couple (played by Rob Lowe and Demi Moore) who try to turn a one-night stand into a lasting relationship, will be released this summer under the new title “About Last Night. . . .”

Tri-Star execs say that some broadcast media told the studio they would not accept commercials under the “Sexual Perversity . . . “ title, while others said they would run the commercials only after 11 p.m. Certain newspapers, they said, told them the ads would have to run in the section reserved for X-rated films.

Herb Marks, in charge of movie display ads for The Times, said he told Tri-Star that the newspaper would have to see the ad before making a decision and that he had not rejected it on the title alone. The Times does not run ads for X-rated films.

The film makers went along with the change with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

“Frankly, I’m appalled by the advertising media’s power to influence this kind of decision,” said director Ed Zwick, in the studio’s press release. “But given the circumstances, I believe we made the only decision possible.”

Executive producer Arnold Stiefel said he liked the new title better.

David Mamet, who created the play and the title but is not involved in the film, could not be reached for comment.

DOWN AND OUT IN CANNES: Beverly Hills residents spending May--and their money--in Cannes won’t be leaving home altogether. The Beverly Hills City Council voted this week to make Cannes its sister city.

In making the announcement, Beverly Hills’ new mayor Charlotte Spadaro, who took up the sister city cause initiated three years ago by former mayor Ben Stansbury, said the adoption makes sense because many of the same boutiques found on Rodeo Drive can be found in Cannes and many Beverly Hills residents have second homes in the hills above Cannes.

Well, of course.