Is He Ready For His Close-Up? : Kato Kaelin moves from the hot seat in the O.J. Simpson trial to the court of public opinion. With a publicist, attorney and agent behind him, he’s looking to leap from being the butt of jokes to star.

Brian (Kato) Kaelin is the embodiment of the saying “Be careful what you wish for--you might get it.”

He wished for stardom and got it. Even as a child he knew he was destined for more than life in the Wisconsin ‘burbs.

“I knew I had something inside that people had to see,” he says. “I can’t explain it--I can feel it, and it’s happening now. . . . I accept what’s going on, but to think of how it has happened, there’s nothing I can do about it. I don’t know that it’s OK , but it just happened, it’s real life.”

The Kato Phenomenon is happening right now, streaking by like a fastball. How many other quasi-actors with a string of tepid credits get tapped for Comedy Central’s “Politically Incorrect,” United Paramount Network’s “The Watcher,” charity autograph signings, a portrait by Annie Leibovitz, “20/20,” “Larry King Live” and an upcoming guest shot on “Roseanne”? He even got invited to Larry King’s wedding .

So what’s in store for this 36-year-old witness/house guest extraordinaire? Kato’s Krew--his publicist, attorney and agent--are sifting through offers, deciding what move to make next.

“Right now we’d like to get him some high-profile guest roles,” says publicist David Crowley of the Lee Solters Co., “like ‘Saturday Night Live’ or when he did ‘Politically Incorrect,’ things along those lines, while we’re entertaining film offers. He’s been trying to make the rounds--studios, agencies, casting directors, producers--but he literally has not had time. He got off the witness stand and started doing interviews and charity appearances.”

What about that reported book deal with St. Martin’s Press, with an advance of $500,000?

Repeating what he said on the witness stand, Kaelin says there never was a deal, but he’s not ruling out doing a book at some point.

David Kaye, St. Martin’s senior vice president and general counsel, says: “I can confirm that there is no book deal. I can’t comment on whether there was or was not any discussion or negotiation about a book deal in the past.”

*

The cruelest twist of fate has made a friend’s slaying the catalyst that set Kaelin on top of the world, turning down (as he says he did) $200,000 worth of work in one day because it wasn’t the right stuff.

It’s amazing what a few days on a witness stand can do for a career.

What is the secret of his success?

“My lawyer says he doesn’t know what it is,” Kaelin says, “but whatever it is, we have to bottle it and sell it. I’m me, that’s it.”

Kaelin’s advisers also believe that their client was destined for the bright lights and the big city.

“There’s a big demand for Kato right now,” says the publicist.

“If O.J. hadn’t happened he’d be a star anyway,” says the agent.

“I think people can’t help but sort of smile when they’re around him,” says the attorney.

Talk to some industry insiders, however, and Kaelin’s future is clouded in skepticism. Maybe it’s understandable, considering that his longest time in front of the camera occurred on the witness stand, where he at times appeared nervous and scattered. Up to that point his scant credits included a stint on E!’s “Talk Soup”; an adult movie, “Surf, Sand & Sex,” described as a “happy, erotic romp,” and a years-old karaoke video for Tom Jones’ “Delilah” showing him stabbing a woman in a jealous rage.

“He’s got a good look, but he doesn’t project stability,” says a casting director.

“My advice? Take acting lessons. Go to class and stop being in the limelight,” says an agent.

“Honestly, you know, I think the proof is ultimately in the pudding,” says TV casting director Marc Hirschfeld of Liberman/Hirschfeld, who adds that Kaelin’s resume is “frankly quite limited.”

“While I think that he’s getting his 15 minutes of fame right now, he may be able to parlay that into a short-term career,” Hirschfeld continues. “If the guy can act, he might be able to jump-start what has been up to this point an unimpressive career. . . . He was invisible as an actor prior to the event. And just because this has thrust him into the limelight, I can’t take him seriously as an actor, because he hasn’t really proven himself as one yet. The verdict is still out.”

Says an agent who requested anonymity: “He’s not a motion picture star. Of course, without any credible piece of film, I can’t tell if he’s a good actor or not. The talent he may have may be better suited to a 30-minute sitcom. . . . He could be a funny, flaky guest star in a comedy. But his whole demeanor and manner of speech is not that of a star, motion-picture-wise.”

*

Attorney Michael Plotkin, who handles Kaelin’s business af fairs, realizes that his client has an uphill battle.

“For some reason,” he says, “there’s been something about him that sort of magnetizes people, but there’s also been a reluctance to deal with Kato as other than a sort of icon from the trial. And so people have not taken him seriously. There were a number of people we talked to about doing endorsements, and each of the ad agencies were thrilled with him, they loved him to death. But they were somewhat troubled by the image the trial portrayed. And rather than take a risk that might have tarnished their image one way or another, they backed off. . . . But I think that image will fade.”

Kaelin’s advisers suggested that he lie low until his testimony ended; now they say offers are coming in, decisions are being made, a career is being plotted. He’s been talking to the top brass at NBC and meeting with Brandon Tartikoff. So what’s next? TV? Films? A talk show?

“I’d love to be working in films,” says Kaelin. “It doesn’t mean I’d turn down television, and not to be a lead (in a movie) right away, but just to work with some talented, talented people, because I’m sure if I got a lead, not that I couldn’t do it, but I’d like to learn more from the actors because you can pick up so much from the wisdom of other actors that have been in the business. I think I can catch on to anything--sports or anything. I pick up on things.”

*

It’s early evening as Kaelin sits in his publicist’s Wilshire Boulevard office, a day before he leaves for Washington to do the Larry King show, several days before he heads for Denver to do another charity stint (when these are tied in with a radio station promo, Kaelin receives an undisclosed appearance fee). He has received dozens of requests for personal appearances.

At a recent charity radio station events, an autograph signing for United Cerebral Palsy of the Wabash Valley in Terre Haute, Ind., thousands showed up at a local mall to see this celebrity du jour .

“Did you ever see ‘Hard Day’s Night’?” Kaelin asks. “I was a Beatle. Girls asked me to sign their bedsheets, they came up to my room. They tried to break in.”

He’s got that now-familiar Kato look, the one that drove his Indiana groupies crazy: faded jeans with a quarter-size hole in one thigh, well-worn cowboy boots, an unbuttoned white henley shirt showing off a russet tan and that shaggy mane of blond hair that needs a good comb-through. It’s part California dude, part bad boy--but not part surfer. For the record, Kaelin says he’s never hung ten off a board.

He is relaxed, personable, exhibiting a self-deprecating wit that translates into snappy sound bites. On being invited to Larry King’s wedding he says, “I’m supposed to be in the wedding party. Something tells me I’ll be parking cars.”

When not being pithy he speaks in sentence fragments that must have driven attorneys Marcia Clark and Robert Shapiro batty. Words are lopped off, thoughts get derailed, but Kaelin somehow manages to stay focused.

He’s fully aware that the mega-hype that surrounds him may make it difficult for some in the industry to treat him like a committed actor.

“The people who don’t want to meet me say, ‘Oh, it’s Kato . . . ‘ and put me to the side. And it’s those people I have to impress by getting parts from the people who do want to bring me in.”

The first day on the set of “The Watcher,” Kaelin recalls, the air was thick with curiosity and doubt:

“I could hear everybody was, like . . . you had to be there. Because they were all, like, watching to see someone they didn’t know and already had a judgment about. . . . I know that everything I do will be looked at under a microscope, but my feelings won’t be hurt if they cut me down.”

Danny Aiello III (son of actor Danny Aiello), who directed the episode, which aired last week, says working with Kaelin worried him at first.

“I didn’t know if he could act,” Aiello says, “and he’s the person driving this segment. But we were all pleasantly surprised. He was funny, and he was very prepared.”

USA Today was less effusive in its review this week of “The Watcher.” “As an actor, (Kaelin is) less hostile than as witness, and almost as ineffectual,” wrote critic Matt Roush. “In the best starlet tradition of Hollywood wanna-bes, Kato acts with his hair. You know he’s a bad Kato when he slicks his mane back into a ponytail. You know he’s a good Kato when he lets it flow free.”

Why did the show’s creator and executive producer, Christopher Crowe, cast him? Was he exploiting Kaelin’s notoriety to win viewers--especially after O.J.’s girlfriend, Paula Barbieri, had appeared on a March episode of the show?

“I doubt it,” he scoffed. “What’re we going to do, spike the ratings?” (In fact, the ratings for the episode were about normal.)

“No, I met him at a wrap party and he’s a good guy, and I half felt bad for him, caught up in this maelstrom. He’s from Milwaukee, I’m from Racine--it was a hometown thing. I hadn’t seen him in anything, but I heard he was a pretty good actor.”

*

Those in the Kaelin camp are confident that their client will ride this current wave of popularity into stardom. His agent, Raphael Berko of Media Artists Group, says he originally saw the actor strictly as a favor.

“But when we met him, he knocked our socks off,” Berko says. “ . . . People think it’s all been easy for him, but that’s not true. He’s been the victim of a bad perception, but we’re building a good foundation for him, and I think he’s got a great shot. Five years from now people will think of Kato, the actor they enjoy watching, not Kato from the O.J. trial.”

Kaelin has been fodder for jokes on “Saturday Night Live,” “Late Show With David Letterman,” “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” Harry Shearer’s radio program “Le Show”--basically, anywhere there’s a comedian breathing.

On “Politically Incorrect,” fellow guest Garry Shandling relentlessly skewered Kaelin, who willingly went along with it all, including this exchange:

Shandling: “Knock-knock.”

Kaelin: “Who’s there?”

Shandling: “Oh, you know.”

“My motto has always been: I don’t have anything against people who make fun of me,” Kaelin says. “If people want to live a better life, you can make it better if you wear the other person’s shoes. It’s like if you have one grocery (item) and I have 20, of course you can cut in front of me. I mean, I’m not curing the world from prejudice or anything, but it does make a difference. . . . I have to poke fun at myself.”

He’s kept his head from swelling by relying on his Midwestern family values, his family and his friends from childhood. Even being pals with Charlie Sheen hasn’t turned him into a snob. And when he tells you he’s become friends with Annie Leibovitz and Larry King, he seems astounded at the notion himself.

But with the eyes of the world upon him, he has changed a little.

“I was so much more outgoing,” he says. “I was wild--not drunk--but just wild, and now I can’t do that. I don’t like that part. People who know me know I’m much more low-key because I have to be.”

But one thing that hasn’t changed is Kaelin’s inherent need to make people laugh.

“From grade school through high school,” he recalls, “I always wanted to see if I could get this one guy to laugh at me. I started seeing how much fun that was, just trying to make someone laugh in class. It just kept building and building. And I think my motto was just to have fun. Is that bad? I mean, I know I want to be serious, but fun is part of being serious.

“Hey, you want to see something?” he suddenly says, a mischievous glint in his eye. “Look--TV’s in my blood.”

He shows the back of his hand, the veins rising up to form the scraggly letters TV .

“Pretty good, huh?”