WITH AN EYE ON . . . : Can Leslie Jordan’s Southern comforts set ‘Hearts Afire’ ablaze?

It could be a lucky sign for “Hearts Afire” star Leslie Jordan that his show follows “Murphy Brown” this week. His 1988 turn as Murphy’s 11th secretary--the lovable klutzy ex-con Kyle--was his big break. After a string of flops, Jordan hopes the “Murphy” lead-in will serve as a charm, and draw an audience to his ninth sitcom in four years.

Jordan got the role of endearing, bumbling printer Lonnie Garr after telling stories to the producers. It’s easy to see why. The Tennessee native is as funny, if not funnier, without a script. His high-pitched Southern accent, combined with an energetic comedic delivery, makes him irresistible.

“They wanted to add a recurring character, but didn’t know what they wanted, so they got together a weirdo assortment of comedians,” he recalls of his meeting with “Hearts” writers. “They told us to tell stories. So I just launched into this story about a woman I knew in church whose baby looked just like a pig. My mother used to say it was pitiful how she would dress up the pig baby in frills.”

The next day, he was asked to tell the same story to producer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason. He was told to report to the set next morning. He’d gotten the job. “And there was the pig story in the script, using the woman’s real name!” he says. Embarrassed, he persuaded them to change it--which they did . Slightly . They changed a letter from both her first and last names.

Jordan says it has become a running joke about which of his hometown characters will appear in the show.

University of Tennessee theater degree in hand, Jordan “hopped a Greyhound bus on Valentine’s Day 1982, dumber than dirt and greener than grass. Makes me tired to think about it,” he says with a sigh.

“I couldn’t decide where I wanted to go, New York or Los Angeles. But I decided that if I was going to starve, it would be with a tan.”

The 4-foot-11 actor immediately found work in commercials: “I hit town when that retarded white-trash-from-the-hills look was in and, boy, did I have that!”

Within nine months, he was in eight national commercials. “I did Aunt Jemima Lite Syrup, I was the Pip boy for years, I started the Del Taco ‘Same time, same place’ bit . . . I was always the bellhop, the busboy, the window washer.”

“I worked left and right until the beautiful people came back,” Jordan says. Eventually, he got television roles. Then came Kyle the secretary.

The morning after that “Murphy” episode aired, his agent told him, “Everyone wants to meet with you.”

All of the auditions led to nine sitcoms--all flops. He was offered a role on “Alf.” “But then,” Jordan says, “everyone told me, ‘Honey, you look like that puppet.’ ” Instead, he took “The People Next Door,” which lasted all of four episodes (“Alf” lasted four seasons ).

He says laughing: “People magazine gave it an F-minus, and called it the worst series in the history of television. I’ve done every series that had gone down the toilet.” The sitcom disasters and a role in “Ski Patrol” were balanced out by critically acclaimed work in theater (“Cheatin’ ”).

Then Jordan’s turns on the dramatic “Reasonable Doubts” and “Bodies of Evidence” were met with success: His recurring roles were expanded.

On April 23, Jordan will take his one-man show, “Hysterical Blindness & Other Southern Tragedies That Have Plagued My Life Thus Far” to the Playhouse on Van Dam in New York. The show, which was staged in L.A. a year ago, profiles the pitfalls of growing up in East Tennessee, talented, gay and belonging somewhere else.

In the meantime, Jordan hopes that “Hearts Afire’s” monthlong return in a charmed time slot will help get it renewed. He’s “just having a ball,” he says. “I’m in actor heaven.”

“Hearts Afire” airs Monday at 9:30 p.m . on CBS.