Ice-T Makes a Pitch for Starring Roles : Films: The controversial rapper visits major Hollywood studios with deals in mind.

Despite the controversy surrounding Ice-T’s song “Cop Killer,” the rapper hasn’t been too busy to pursue his acting career. Between press conferences, tour planning and concerts, the “Ice,” as his closest associates call him, is making the rounds of Hollywood pitching movies with himself as the star--not the sidekick or supporting actor as he was in “New Jack City” and the upcoming “Trespass.”

Last week, Ice-T was in producer Chuck Gordon’s office on the 20th Century Fox lot where he “riffed for a half-hour,” according to an insider, on a lead character he would play in an action film with comedy tentatively titled “Bulletproof.” (Gary Busey starred in a 1988 low-budget exploitation movie of the same name.) He would be re-teamed with “Trespass” co-star Stoney Jackson.

Gordon, whose credits include Walt Disney Studios’ “The Rocketeer,” would not say what he thought of Ice-T’s idea or comment on his proposed project. But it appears that other major producers are listening to the media-man-of-the-moment’s pitch.

The likeliest candidate to write or find a vehicle for Ice-T is Warner Bros. Pictures, owned by Time Warner Inc., and sister company to Warner Bros. Records and Sire Records, which released the rapper’s “Body Count” album and is now re-releasing it without the controversial “Cop Killer” song, at the rapper’s request.

Sources close to him said Ice-T has had more pitch meetings at Warners than any other studio--leading some to speculate that furthering his career on the big screen (and in the mainstream) was among his motives for pulling “Cop Killer” from the album.

Among those he’s talked to at Warners: Joel Silver, producer of a number of hits for the studio including the “Lethal Weapon” series. A spokesman for Silver said the producer was out of the country and unavailable to comment.

“He’s exploiting who he is and Hollywood’s famous for picking up on that kind of opportunity,” said one film and record producer.

Ice-T is reportedly too busy to read scripts, so he reads “coverage” instead--a one- or two-page plot summary of a screenplay that agents send to their clients. Ice-T’s agent, Jeremy Zimmer at Intertalent, sends about five summaries a week to his management company.

Those who work with him say that in the last year Ice-T has passed on a singing role in Barry Levinson’s Christmas movie “Toys” that went to LL Cool J instead (“couldn’t work it in his schedule,” a spokesman said); turned down a chance to play a chess bum who teaches the game to a small child in a version of “Searching for Bobby Fischer,” and declined dozens of opportunities to play roles based on his life.

His own ideas are more to his liking. Besides “Bulletproof,” there’s a screen adaptation of a soon-to-be-published DC Comic Book series, “Ice-T’s Players.” And he’s writing a book that’s described as part biography and part political philosophy. It has yet to find a publisher or be titled.

But for every Hollywood player who will “take a meeting” with the rapper, there is one who loathes his outspoken social theories and say they wouldn’t be interested in any of his movie ideas.

Geffen Pictures chairman David Geffen is on the record denouncing the rapper. Disney, which at one time was said to be considering him as the star of a project called “Superhero,” now denies its involvement. Director Ivan Reitman, once said to be interested in discussing casting Ice-T in a feature, “would never . . . ever” consider that scenario today. Reitman’s assistant said the director was out of town, but in conversations with him said that Reitman has made it quite clear his distaste of Ice-T.

But the producer of “Bulletproof,” Traci Alexson, defends Ice-T. She said: “He’s going to be one of the biggest movie stars in the world. He has tremendous charisma.”

The rapper himself was unavailable for comment. His manager said after last week’s surprise announcement over pulling the song, that he was trying to stay out of the news and is instead preparing for his four-month, worldwide concert tour that begins in Australia in September.