WITH AN EYE ON . . . : Born to be wild? China Kantner says she’d rather act

China Kantner, who plays nose-ringed Geena on Fox’s new series “Monty,” is happy to clear up oft-repeated misconceptions about her upbringing. Kantner, 23, is the daughter of the Jefferson Airplane/Starship’s Grace Slick and Paul Kantner. She good-naturedly discusses what her childhood was really like.

For starters, she wasn’t really named “god” when she was born, as many books claim. “When I popped out,” she says in a husky voice much like her mother’s, “the nurse was this sort of religious type. In this cutesy voice, she says: ‘And what are you naming your baby?’ And my mom, being my mom, says wryly, ‘We’re naming her god, but with a small “g” out of respect.’ That’s really all there is to that story.”

The name China actually came out of respect for the Chinese community in San Francisco and her parents’ martial arts instructor, Bruce Lee.

Books chronicling ‘60s rock culture often draw images of drug-filled, Haight-Asbury sessions filled with music and cultural gurus. But Kantner says the Slick-Kantner home didn’t fit that picture.

“It wasn’t like David Crosby was sitting around with my parents and a bunch of others smoking a doobie,” Kantner says. “My parents liked to be alone. And my mom was not a hippie. She wore makeup and shaved her arms and legs and went to museums!”

When China Kantner is reminded that it was Jefferson Airplane’s song “White Rabbit” that welcomed sunrise at Woodstock, she says, “Well, my childhood was different because I was exposed to drugs at a very young age. Everyone I knew smoked pot and drank, but it wasn’t like I ever saw anyone doing lines (of cocaine) or acid.” She makes it clear that home was exclusively for family.

Kantner attended a posh private school in Marin County from age 5 through high school. She says that sometimes she’d be embarrassed when her mother would show up “with blue hair, emerging from this Delorean with both doors open like wings . . . I never knew what she would say.”

Eventually, she grew to emulate her mother, in more ways than one. By 12, she knew she “had an obsessive personality.” Her drug of choice, like her mother’s, was alcohol. Both China and her mother are now sober.

“I was sober from 15 to 20 and then I relapsed and now I’ve been sober for two years. I can’t say I won’t drink again. In reality, I’m a person who shouldn’t drink, but you cannot predict what will happen,” Kantner explains.

Kantner went to New York when she was 15 and landed a job at MTV as a veejay. “People think that my mom can call up and get me a job,” she says. In reality, she’s auditioned for every role.

“I did extra work. I did stand-in, worked at clothing stores and at Tower Records. I feel like I paid my dues.”

She’s thrilled to be on “Monty.” “I didn’t know I could do comedy.” She sees her character, a free-spirited foil to Henry Winkler’s right-wing talk-show host, as “the extreme parts of my life I don’t let out.” She hopes it will lead to her first love--the theater.

She keeps in close contact with her rock-goddess mom and rock-and-roller dad (as well as her stepparents). What did they teach her that she’s most grateful for? “To have a sense of humor in everything. They remind me of what a great life I have and how lucky I am. I’m glad to be alive.”

“Monty” airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on Fox.