‘West Beverly Hills High’ is a lot like Torrance High. In fact, it <i> is </i> Torrance High.

Torrance High School is about to achieve network stardom. But not by playing itself.

Torrance alums, no doubt, will recognize the school’s distinctive blue-and-yellow fountain when it flashes across their television screens. But to the rest of the world, or at least that portion watching a new Fox Broadcasting Co. show, the school will be known by another name: “West Beverly Hills High.”

The fictional school will serve as one of the main settings for the series due this fall, tentatively titled “Class of Beverly Hills.”

A spokeswoman says the show will focus on the Walsh family, and the effect on them of their move from Minneapolis to the stereotypical capital of millionaires and movie stars (neither of which, of course, have been known to frequent the largely middle-class city of Torrance).

“It’s culture shock,” show publicist Beth Howard said. “It’s trying to maintain their ideals while trying to fit into this accelerated lifestyle of Southern California.”

What it will not be, apparently, is a latter-day version of “The Beverly Hillbillies,” the long-running comedy series about the Clampetts, a poor family from the Ozarks that strikes oil and moves west.

The show, according to another show spokesman, is a “drama-slash-comedy” that will probe family values. For instance, the spokesman said, “the kids at (West Beverly Hill High) all have BMWs and Corvettes. The Walsh kids suddenly start saying, ‘Maybe we should have these things too.’ ”

So why not actually film it at the real thing, Beverly Hills High?

Sol Levine, Beverly Hills’ acting school superintendent, refused to comment Friday on whether the show’s producer approached Beverly Hills High before turning to Torrance. Nor could the producer be reached to explain why Torrance High was chosen.

Regardless of how it came to be, Torrance High offers a photogenic backdrop. The school complex is a gracious collection of beige stucco buildings and palm-shaded courtyards on West Carson Street. Opened in 1917, the 1,700-student school is listed on the National Register of Historic Buildings.

The Torrance Unified School District board agreed Monday to permit the filming by Lava Films and Torrand Productions. In return, the district will be paid $2,500 for each day of filming and $1,000 for each day of preparations or cleanup. Efforts are being made to time filming so it will not overlap with class hours, school officials said.

The show’s cameras first converged on Torrance High this spring for the shooting of a pilot movie, which is due to be shown Oct. 4.

Crews are to return later this month to periodically film scenes for the hourlong show, scheduled to air Thursdays at 9 p.m.

Its brief taste of fame already has reaped benefits for Torrance High. Money from the spring shooting was used to replace the well-worn curtains in the assembly hall. The school bought new stage curtains--in a sumptuous maroon velvet, in keeping with the maroon-and-gray school colors--as well as new draperies for the 10 big windows in the hall.

One school official who viewed the pilot says that “Class of Beverly Hills” is hardly cinema verite.

Vicky Estrada, assistant principal for student services, said the show’s teens “dress beautifully and drive very expensive cars.” Although that may be a screenwriter’s image of life in Beverly Hills, Estrada said, “the times I’ve gone up to Beverly Hills High School, their students look the same as ours do.”