CLOTHES MAKE THE MAN

First, there was Luke and Laura. Now there’s . . . Tony and Jim.

Former “General Hospital” heartthrob Tony Geary has found a new on-screen romantic interest--”illusionist” Jim Bailey. In “Penitentiary III,” now shooting around town for Cannon Films, Bailey does his entire role in drag. He portrays “Cleopatra,” Geary’s cellmate (and very close buddy).

“I play this guy who’s been imprisoned for murder and who’ll never get out,” Bailey told us, laughing much of the time. “Tony’s this rotten Mafia kingpin who makes me over into what he wants--a woman. He keeps me coked-up all the time. . . . It’s so bizarre. . . .”

More: Geary--who appears with white hair, white fingernails, a blue eye and a green eye--forces Bailey to try to seduce star Leon Isaac Kennedy. And to do a strip number in a get-up befitting the Queen of the Nile--for the entire prison population. “All these guys start screaming and they begin tearing off my clothes. . . .”

But, added Bailey: “At the end of the film, audiences will be on my side. And they’ll relate to Cleo. She’s such a victim.”

Look for a tough rating: “This is one of those films,” Bailey joked, “where no one under 35 will be admitted into the theater.”