GREAT SCOTT! NAKED AMBITION!

Channel 9’s bombastic Scott St. James, the Rambo of local sportscasters, wants to take his tough-guy image to the big screen.

That’s what’s behind that full-page ad in Daily Variety (“talent rate” cost: $1,125) in which St. James unabashedly proclaimed, “The episodic and movie folks are using him too. A lot!”

Naturally, we had to find out what’s “a lot.” The irrepressible St. James (he swears it’s his real name) returned our call via his car phone, as he rushed to cover a breaking story. Here’s what we learned:

He just tested for the role of a “frenetic emcee” in Sly Stallone’s arm wrestling movie, “Over the Top.”

He’s played “news guys” on episodes of “Dallas,” “Capitol” and “A-Team,” among others, and a ringside announcer in a TV movie about boxer Boom Boom Mancini.

For his “Dallas” audition, “I was pathetic--there are not words to describe how bad I was.” (But he got the job.)

On the set, he mistook star Linda Gray for a makeup lady (“terribly embarrassing”). Worse, he didn’t realize she was directing that week and misinterpreted her keen stares for romantic interest (“I almost made a move on her--social blunder No. 2!”). Alas, his lines got cut because “Priscilla Presley had a lengthy crying scene.”

He attended a lavish Cannon Films bash expressly to hustle Chuck Norris for a role (Norris was friendly but noncommittal).

Now he’s working “at least two hours a week” with an acting coach who’s “definitely of the opinion that there are other areas that I should be exploring.” St. James thinks he’d make a terrific cop or “even a cowboy, or anything in between. . . . There’s also a comedic ability there if drawn out by the right person.”

Problem was, until that Variety ad, nobody knew of his thespian credits and ambitions.

“My publicist didn’t even know!,” St. James boomed. “So I figured it was time to spend some money!”