WHAT PRIVATE PARTS?

By BRUCE HANDY

I grow on you like a fungus," Howard Stern claims at the end of Private Parts, the often very funny autobiographical film in which he stars. What's growing on Stern, he has found, is a taste for the grudging though genuine praise that the movie, and the best-selling book before it, has drawn. "I never thought that kind of stuff mattered to me," he says, "but it does."

Will critical success spoil Howard Stern? Suffering praise is a relatively novel sensation for the New York City radio personality whose morning show is now heard in 35 markets around the country and who is probably most famous for--well, it's hard to pick just one thing: for getting female listeners to bare their breasts in his studio, for saying Rodney King deserved his beating and Magic Johnson his HIV virus, for obsessing about the smallness of his penis, for having racked up a record $1.7 million fine from the FCC for uttering words like penis on air in an "indecent" context.

This side of Stern is certainly not hidden in Private Parts, which is a comparatively straightforward telling of his struggle to succeed in broadcasting. Stern likens the film to Rocky and claims preview audiences have said Private Parts will inspire them to "follow their dreams," a reaction even Stern thinks is a bit much. But the movie shows him in a surprisingly earnest, at times sweet light; indeed, a couple of romantic scenes are so borderline sappy one wonders if Stern fears he has left himself open to being laughed at, as opposed to with (a humorist's worst nightmare). "It hasn't happened yet," he says, "and we've shown the movie to enough people. But I've never been afraid to be called sensitive or romantic. I don't really give a f___ what people think."

That, of course, is the essence of his appeal on radio. But the essence of film acting is demanding to be loved; Stern, with an occasional puppy-dog mope onscreen, shows himself willing to grovel for his new medium. "I was full of bravado when I first got into this," says Stern, who had never acted before, at least in the Stella Adler sense. "I was going, 'Oh, these actors are a______s, and it's so easy." Nevertheless, he panicked on the first day of shooting, begging to improvise his part in a more radio-like fashion before finally settling down and finding that he actually enjoyed memorizing lines and hitting marks. Ivan Reitman, the director (Dave) who produced Private Parts, believes, not surprisingly, that Stern's performance is strong enough to launch full-blown movie stardom; Reitman has even talked with Stern (who just signed a new radio contract) about taking the lead in an "edgy" romantic comedy. Reitman says he can also envision a series of films in which Stern continues to play a version of himself, in much the same way Jack Benny played Jack Benny.

But Howard Stern is a more complicated, sometimes troubling persona. "What I like about the movie," he says, "is that it shows that. There are issues in my life. I don't think you'll walk out saying, 'Hey, what a great guy!' You get an accurate portrayal of who I am." Who knew that could be something more than just morbidly fascinating?

--By Bruce Handy