HBO has been in huddles with Gabriel Byrne about resuming his role as the therapist in "In Treatment," the American spin-off of an Israeli series that is now in second-season production in its homeland.

This is the word we get from Blair Underwood, who says that a new cast would be hired to play the patients in the HBO show that ran for 30 minutes a night, five nights a week, to critical raves.

Blair, a frontrunner to earn an Emmy for his role as an arrogant Navy pilot in the first season of the American version of "In Treatment," will be representing the show at the International Television Festival in Italy. And then it will be back to a schedule that is awesome in its intensity:

He's returned to work on the series "Dirty Sexy Money," which will start its new season in October.

He's in post-production on "Bridge to Nowhere," the independent film in which he makes his directorial debut.

He's preparing for the Sept. 16 launch of "In the Night of the Heat," the second in his planned "Casanegra" series of erotic detective novels he's authoring with Tananarive Due (cq) and her husband, Steven Barnes. He plans to star in a big-screen franchise that will focus on the gritty, provocative exploits of the books' hero, down-on-his-luck actor and former gigolo Tennyson Hardwick. Such plans, he says, have been on the drawing board "since we wrote the first book. I see it as a way to give myself empowerment by creating the kind of role that truly interests me."

And how does he feel about all the roles — in projects ranging from "The New Adventures of Old Christine" to "Sex and the City," that have focused on his charms and looks as a sex symbol?

"One could do worse things," he says with unmistakable charm.

LAY LAINIE LAY: Lainie Kazan says she was, "in a way, delighted" to learn that her sex scene with Adam Sandler was almost completely cut out of "You Don't Mess With the Zohan" — Sandler's comedy about an Israeli-super-commando-turned-Manhattan hairstylist that opens today (6/6). "But I hear it's going to be on the DVD. It's going to come back and haunt me," admits the sexagenarian actress/singer. She also did a sex scene with "the little guy" in the flick (let's not even go there) that was not used. Her character, she explains, "is a wild woman."

Kazan admits she couldn't imagine which part Sandler had in mind for her when he sent her the "Zohan" script. After learning that her role was to be that of Gail, his muse/best friend's mom/one of several, um, love interests, she said, "No, I don't think so." But on the advice of her manager, she reconsidered. And then, "You know when you're in the throes of something and you abandon yourself to it? When I finished the scene, I thought, 'I think you've gone too far this time, Miss Kazan.'

"You know what was hilarious? I didn't think they were really going to do that. Then they handed me a nudity clause, and I almost fainted. A nudity clause!? Oh, no." So what did she do? "I took it home, I thought about it, thought about it some more, then finally said, 'Oh, screw it. I'll do it.' I was a hippie, you know," she reminds, "a flower child."

HOT BUTTONS: "Army Wives'" second season, premiering Sunday (6/8) "starts out very, very, very emotionally," reports Sally Pressman. Quite naturally. Fans of the Lifetime military drama set on an army base will recall that in last season's cliffhanger, a disturbed soldier walked into the bar where Roxy (Pressman) works with explosives strapped to his chest. Pressman says when the show returns, "it's a direct cut from the finale, which left everyone hanging about wondering what is going to happen with this bomb."

The actress says she's grateful she got the chance to stretch her chops on hiatus in Lifetime's "Love Sick — Secrets of a Sex Addict" movie that aired a couple of months back because "it allowed me to reach some new emotional levels. I knew 'Army Wives' was going to be traumatic and emotional when we came back, so it was great to be able to do that."

CASE CLOTHED: Abigail Breslin and the daughters of Heather Locklear and Denise Richards are among the Hollywood tween contingent stepping out these days in Sally Miller's Girls Clothing line. It's nice to know there are still young ladies in Tinsel Town drawn to what Miller describes as her "age appropriate" wear — as opposed to the street corner look embraced by some.

With reports by Stephanie DuBois and Emily Feimster.

To find out more about Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith and read their past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 MARILYN BECK AND STACY JENEL SMITH

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