RODERICK MANN : COMING SOON: ‘AUDITION’ OF A SANE EX-HOUSEWIFE

“I’m using this film as a sort of audition,” said Carrie Snodgress, “so the industry can see what I look like. People are always asking my agent, ‘How is she?’ ‘Is she all right?’ Well, the answer is yes.”

Fifteen years ago Snodgress won over the toughest critics with her performance in Frank and Eleanor Perry’s “Diary of a Mad Housewife.”

With her husky voice and coldish manner, she was hailed as a new Margaret Sullavan and a possible successor to Carole Lombard. And she was nominated for an Academy Award.

Everything seemed to be going her way. But instead of seizing her chance, she turned her back on her career and, with rock star Neil Young, took off for a remote ranch in Northern California where she gave birth to their son, Zeke, now 13. Universal, to whom she was under contract, understandably was displeased, particularly when she didn’t even turn up for the Oscar ceremony.

They tore up her contract. And so, for seven years, she stayed out in the wilderness with her man and her son.

When the relationship ended, she came back to Hollywood to try to pick up her career. It wasn’t easy. She lost her role in “Rocky,” she says, because her agent asked too much money for her. And from then on, movies were few and far between--though she did make “The Fury” with Kirk Douglas and “Pale Rider” with Clint Eastwood. Mostly, though, she worked in television.

Now she’s back on the big screen again in Cannon’s “Murphy’s Law,” starring Charles Bronson. It isn’t another “Diary of a Mad Housewife,” she admits, “but this is a Bronson picture and people will go to see it. I can’t ask for more than that.”

She talks quite openly about her mistakes and problems. She has put behind her the well-publicized assault case of a few years ago. Ask her a question and she answers honestly and frankly. “That’s why I’ll never be in the ‘National Enquirer,’ ” she said with a faint smile. “I’ve never hidden anything, so there’s nothing for them to dig up. Everyone knows everything about me.”

She has, she says, no regrets at all about what she did to her career--”none. I was never really a career woman, you see. My life always came first. When I got nominated for ‘Diary of a Mad Housewife,’ I didn’t think, ‘Ahh, now I’ll get more money.’ My dream had always just been to do my work well, fall in love and build a life for myself. So going off to live on a ranch with Neil was the obvious next step. And we had some wonderful years together.”

But when she returned to Hollywood, she admits, it was with high hopes that people would remember her. And losing “Rocky” was a big blow.

“I had the role,” she said. “I’d done nine rehearsals with Sylvester Stallone, and I was all set for the film. He’d already told me all they could pay me was $12,000, and that was fine with me. But my agent at the time was so sure they wanted me badly, he asked for $40,000--even though I hadn’t worked in years. So they dropped me and Talia Shire got the role.”

She took “Murphy’s Law” (opening April 18) because, she says, “I realized it was time to stop waiting for Katharine Hepburn parts to come along. And it’s a good, strong role.”

The woman she plays in the movie has just been released from an institution to which she was sent after being found guilty of murder but insane. She then sets out to kill everyone who helped put her away--including Bronson, who plays a cop.

The original script (by Gail Morgan Hickman) called for him to shoot her at the end of the film. He didn’t like the idea of shooting a woman, so now the movie ends with an ax fight in which she goes over the edge of a tall building.

“I’m hanging there,” said Snodgress, “and I say to Charles: ‘You go to hell!’ ‘Ladies first,’ he says--and then I fall. Charles really liked that line, and wanted it to be the title of the film. Cannon wouldn’t have it. ‘You can’t have a Charles Bronson movie called “Ladies First,” ’ they said. And, of course, you can’t.”