On View : Lauren Hutton and . . . Her Very Busy Schedule

Lauren Hutton strides into a conference room at a Los Angeles television station, throws her movie-star sunglasses on the table, shrugs off her straw backpack and heads straight to the huge relief map of L.A. on the wall.

“Whoa. It’s amazing when you see it in relief,” says New Yorker Hutton with her trademark raspy voice as she begins to point out the Hollywood Hills and the Santa Monica Mountains.

It comes as no surprise that Hutton is drawn to a map like a topographer. For not only has she traveled the globe and lived with tribes in remote corners of Africa (“My idea of a good time is a party with a bunch of Pygmies,” she says, quite seriously), she has uncovered new territory in the world of modeling.

In 1974, Hutton was the first model to negotiate a long-term exclusive modeling contract. And almost 20 years later, while in her late ‘40s, she shook things up again. She appeared in a Barney’s ad shot by famed photographer Steven Meisel and defied the notion that models have to be young. Rather, her image celebrated mature womanhood. “Women came up to me in the street and thanked me,” says Hutton of the ad that resurrected her career. “I was very proud.”

Hutton, now 51, is charting yet another new course. She’s hosting her own late-night talk show, called “Lauren Hutton and ...” in which she goes one-on-one for a half-hour with a guest. Speaking of “and,” Hutton concurrently will appear as a regular in her first TV series, CBS’ “Central Park West,” the steamy new show from “Beverly Hills, 90210” creator Darren Star that is filmed entirely in Manhattan. Hutton plays the aristocratic mom to the beautiful people.

Her schedule is certainly hectic. “I’ve been under so much unbelievable stress and strain that I don’t even notice it,” says tell-it-like-it-is Hutton. Thankfully, she just had a day off. “I hung out by the pool of the Beverly Hills Hotel.” It’s hard not to conjure up an image of Hutton’s scenes with Richard Gere at the very same hotel in “American Gigolo,” one of her only memorable films.

Today, Hutton’s back at work, plugging the talk show and awaiting an interview with a team from KCAL, the local station that will air her show. It’s one of those 90-degree summer days, but Hutton looks crisp in her reddish silk jacket, creamy shirt and short navy skirt.

“I’m interested in what people think, not what they do,” she says, launching into her pitch. She explains that her talk show will celebrate the art of conversation: “We’ll change TV even if we don’t stay on.”

Although it’s typical for emerging chatmeisters to say that their show is different, in Hutton’s case, it really is. Set in a loft in New York City’s Soho near Hutton’s residence (“So I can walk to work”), the show is shot on film, like a movie, instead of tape. Hutton describes the look as “lush. It’s gorgeous.”

She credits filmmaker Luca Babini, the show’s co-producer, with creating the artistic look. Babini also happens to be her “sweetheart.” “Yes, I’m in love,” she says, flashing that million-dollar gap-toothed smile.

Why a talk show? Hutton likes talk. “I talk quite a bit myself. I force the guest to fight for time,” she jokes.

She is good at gab. All in one sitting, Hutton tells a detailed story about a trip to Uganda, throws in some of her famous friend Camille Paglia’s neo-feminist philosophy, discusses her own theories on men and women, and uses a few words that aren’t even printable. The message is clear--she’s not just another pretty face, even if she does look fantastic.

But she says her life experiences are what prepare her for her new job. “I’ve read, I’ve traveled. I’ve had an incredibly lucky private life,” she says.

Hutton’s range of interests will be reflected on the show. Her dream guests? “I want Gorby. I want Jack [Nicholson]. I want a friend of mine who’s a Huli warrior and has a bone about two feet long through his nose. He’s a great guy. A real hunk.”

She says she’s still finding her way as a host. “I have so many fears about the show that basically I’ve just given them all up.”

One might think that because Hutton romped near alligators and rattlesnakes in the swamps of Florida while growing up that she might actually be fearless. But she describes a difficult childhood. “I came from a very extreme background. I lived rich and I lived poor,” she says, describing her “downwardly mobile” journey from the wealthy section of Charleston, S.C., to the isolated west coast of Florida.

Her parents’ marriage ended, and her real father died when she was very young. Her mother remarried and had three kids, but then became ill. Hutton became surrogate mother. So she says that playing a mother on the series “Central Park West” isn’t too much of a stretch, even though she has no children of her own. “I’ve been a mother since I was 13.”

She admits, though, that sometimes it’s hard to grasp the fact that she’s the one in the maternal role, that of the Manhattan socialite mother to two twentysomethings. “I think that’s something I’m coming to terms with now. It’s hard to be the grown-up mother of grown-ups. Part of me thinks that I’m their same age.”

But Hutton is having fun playing the matriarch. “I never watched any of these shows. I’ve never understood people who were addicted--but now I’m getting addicted just from seeing the scripts.”

Time’s up. Hutton has to get ready for her TV interview. She’s whisked off to the makeup room where she dumps out the contents of her makeup bag and starts applying concealer to her eyes. She lights a cigarette and makes a phone call to check travel arrangements back to New York. “Good,” she says with a sigh while hanging up. “I’ll make my 2 o’clock yoga class.”

‘Lauren Hutton and. . .” airs weekdays on KCAL at 1:30 a.m. “Central Park West” airs Wednesdays on CBS at 9 p.m.