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It’s No ‘Shaq’ at $20,000/Mo.

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

SHAQUILLE O’NEAL, the 23-year-old Orlando Magic star, has leased a Beverly Hills home for four months while he’s in Hollywood shooting the action-comedy “Kazaam.”

The 7-foot-1, 303-pound basketball phenom, who made his film debut in the drama “Blue Chips” (1994), will play a genie who becomes a rock star in “Kazaam.”

“Kazaam” is the first in a two-picture deal for O’Neal with Interscope. The second, due to begin production next summer, is “Shaq Fu,” a futuristic story of a basketball player turned Ninja.

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O’Neal just finished his third NBA season as the quintessential brute-force center and a master dunkster, winning a scoring title and lifting an expansion franchise into the big leagues. He also makes from $15 million to $17 million a year in endorsements and commercials and is known for his hip-hop recordings.

He leased a five-bedroom, nearly 5,000-square-foot home for close to $20,000 a month, sources say.

Built in 1976, the home, worth about $3 million, has a tennis court and an area for shooting baskets. “That’s what he wanted the most,” a source said, referring to the basketball area.

His Florida home has 17 rooms in 22,000 square feet, including a basketball court, indoor pool, eight-seat movie theater and recording studio.

Elaine Young and Barbara Eisner of Coldwell Banker, Beverly Hills, represented O’Neal, and Annie Constantinesco of Stan Herman/Stephen Shapiro Associates, Beverly Hills, had the listing.

Hockey superstar WAYNE GRETZKY and his wife, actress JANET JONES, have sold their two-acre lot in the gated Beverly Hills-area development of Beverly Park, sources say.

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Instead of building on the site, as they once planned, the L.A. Kings center, 34, and Jones are building a 7,000-square-foot home at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks.

They sold the Beverly Park lot for close to its asking price of slightly more than $2 million, sources say.

The buyer, who is in the tool business, plans to build his honeymoon home in Beverly Park, a source said.

Gary Velis of Stan Herman/Stephen Shapiro & Associates, Beverly Hills, represented the buyer, and Gary Jones of Fred Sands’ Brentwood office represented Gretzky and Jones.

BARBARA HERSHEY, who starts shooting “Portrait of a Lady” with Nicole Kidman in England on Tuesday, has put her Santa Monica Canyon home on the market at just under $750,000.

The Emmy-winning actress, 47, co-starred in Woody Allen’s “Hannah and Her Sisters” (1986) and played Mary Magdalene in Martin Scorsese’s “The Last Temptation of Christ” (1988). She was also in “Beaches” (1988) and “Splitting Heirs” (1993).

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She decided to sell her home of four years because she bought a larger home nearby about nine months ago.

The house she is selling has three bedrooms in about 2,100 square feet. Built in the 1950s, the gated home was updated and has air conditioning, skylights, a fireproof roof, two fireplaces, two outdoor decks and a hot tub.

Robert Radcliffe of Jon Douglas Co., Pacific Palisades, has the listing.

A Beverly Hills-area house built in 1928 for legendary filmmaker KING VIDOR has been sold for about $5 million, sources say. Vidor, who directed the classic silents “The Big Parade” (1925) and “The Crowd” (1928), died in 1982 at his Paso Robles ranch.

Designed by Wallace Neff, the home is nearly 8,000 square feet on five acres, with a tennis court and a 1,500-foot-long, two-lane driveway.

The seller was described as an industrialist based in Japan. He listed the home in March, 1994, at $8.8 million. The most recent asking price was $5.3 million. The buyer is from the East Coast.

Drew Mandile and Victoria Lockwood had the listing, and Deirdre Daniels represented the buyer. All the real estate agents are with Fred Sands’ Beverly Hills office.

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The Los Angeles residence of the consul general of Norway has been listed at just under $1 million.

“Norway has decided to close its consulate here and only have one in California. San Francisco won out,” said Alice Buckley, who shares the listing with Chun Kim, both of Coldwell Banker, Hancock Park.

Official duties for 12 states are being centralized in the Bay Area, said the consul general, “because it is logical geographically, with our extensive interests in Seattle as well, and we already have a big setup in San Francisco.”

The 69-year-old home, in Hancock Park, has been owned by the kingdom of Norway since 1976, but the government has had a consulate in the L.A. area since 1938. The Hancock Park home is about 5,000 square feet and has four bedrooms, a guest house, pool and spa.

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