PENCIL PALS

Veteran screenwriter Bill Norton these days is writing his scripts with pencil and pad.

Incarcerated in Rouen, France, since June of ‘86, Norton was sentenced last week to a four-year prison term for attempting to smuggle arms to the Irish Republican Army. Norton’s wife, Eleanor, who has been out of prison for a time due to medical problems, received a three-year sentence for the same charges. (Time already served, awaiting trial, will count toward sentences.)

Norton isn’t permitted to have a typewriter in his cell, so Hollywood producer Mike Wise--Norton’s longtime friend and agent--is sending the handwritten scripts out for typing before sending them on the rounds.

Written strictly on spec, the scripts (two, so far) adhere to Norton’s tradition of tough guy-actioners--like “White Lightning,” “Brannigan” and “The Scalphunters.” (No, said Wise, Norton hasn’t fictionalized his real-life prison ordeal.)

“And they’ve got lots of humor in them--as is usually the case with Bill’s stuff,” said Wise. “I’ve been assured that Norton will be permitted to continue his work in prison, in case a project is bought and someone needs changes.”

Wise talked with Norton by phone after sentencing: “He was depressed. I don’t think he thought he’d get that long a sentence. He’s in his mid-60s, after all. These are tough years for him.”

Norton’s writer-director son, B.W.L. Norton, visited with his father the morning of the sentencing: “He seemed healthy and in relatively good spirits,” said Norton Jr., exec producer of the new CBS series “Tour of Duty.”

In fact, Norton Sr. delivered an impassioned speech to the court on behalf of the liberation of Northern Ireland. Said the son, “I’m not tremendously sympathetic to the cause myself, but nonetheless I was very moved by my father’s words and arguments. So was the court. There were a lot of tears when my father was finished.”