The Hunk from Red October

By RICHARD CORLISS

- Caribbean blue eyes. The knowing mouth. A fine figure that stops just this side of martial artistry. These are the anonymous good looks of an afternoon actor. Alec Baldwin started in soaps, and he could have stagnated there. But moviemakers recognized his restless intelligence, and now moviegoers are in on the secret. Smart Alec, 31, is a talent Hollywood can bank on.

As CIA good guy Jack Ryan, Baldwin stands up to Soviet submaster Sean Connery in the toy-boat saga The Hunt for Red October, which opened this month to record-breaking business. In next month's Miami Blues, a mammothly entertaining rogue comedy, he is a psychotic but likable ex-con. This week, off-Broadway, he opens in Craig Lucas' deft and delectable romantic fantasy Prelude to a Kiss, playing a love-struck guy whose bride's personality is stolen on their wedding day.

The best part of this newfound, well-earned success is that Hollywood doesn't quite know what to do with Alec Baldwin. He keeps disappearing into his roles, slicking down his hair to come on like a hood or donning glasses for that grad-student look. Mimicry is another form of camouflage, and Baldwin is gifted at it. He can imitate a Woody Allen monologue or a Southern stuntman's patois. While making Red October, Baldwin perfected such a good Sean Connery impression that it ended up in the movie. This is a great on-the- set mood enhancer, but a would-be star should be polishing his image, not hiding it.

And since when is a movie hunk supposed to have a sharp mind and a strong will? "Most directors rent actors," Baldwin says in his intimate, raspy voice. "You're like a puppet. They put their hand up your sleeve, and you do what they want." As a star he will get to do what he wants -- which is perhaps to be other than a star. He holds strong political opinions and is not afraid to promote them. He is a member of the Creative Coalition, an environmental group. "He could be a politician or run a movie studio," says his Red October director, John McTiernan. "My guess is he'd prefer to be a producer than a director. He'd rather own the shop than be the foreman."

A star actor -- Kevin Costner, say -- plays a character whom the moviegoer recognizes as Kevin Costner: flinty, rural, resourceful. Baldwin, so far, has enjoyed playing a broad range of roles that engage audiences' interest but not always their sympathy. Decent husband, psycho killer, corporate meanie, hero spy. Like a superior salesman, Baldwin displays his wares without revealing himself. Several directors have called him a chameleon, but McTiernan stresses that "Alec goes further. He gets his freedom by keeping you guessing about who he is. It's a function of his intelligence. Give him a toehold, and he'll scamper up the mountain by himself."

The climb began in Massapequa, N.Y., where Alexander Baldwin was one of six children born to a high school English teacher and his wife. Zander, as Alec's family calls him, was a good student, a talented lacrosse and football player, a compulsive movie watcher. Acting was not supposed to be an option, but after he enrolled at George Washington University with an eye toward law school, his vision of life at the bar ate at him: "I saw everything laid out in front of me, on a conveyor belt." He transferred to New York University's acting school, and within a year he had won a job on the TV soap The Doctors. Now the other Baldwin boys -- Billy, Daniel and Stephen -- are actors as well. "It was a case of 'If he can do it, we can too,' " Alec says. "Our parents were appalled."

Baldwin did TV, regional theater and Broadway (Loot). He worked hard and wide; he was everywhere and invisible at the same time. In 1988 he appeared in widely varying guises in four substantial movies: Beetlejuice, Married to the Mob, Working Girl and Talk Radio. In this movie equivalent of repertory theater Baldwin didn't make a big splash -- it was more a series of pleasant ripples -- but the roles enabled him to parade his versatility and apprentice with top directors. He insinuated his presence rather than asserting it.

Still, Hollywood remembered him. Married to the Mob (directed by Jonathan Demme) led to Miami Blues (co-produced by Demme). Costner said no to Red October, and Baldwin got the job. Now he has a Woody Allen movie in the hopper. And after Prelude to a Kiss he will vacate his Manhattan apartment (where he lives alone after the breakup of a recent romance) to shoot Neil Simon's Marrying Man in Los Angeles. In the film he plays a satyric bachelor who falls in love with Kim Basinger on the eve of his wedding day.

"It's all luck," Baldwin observes. "When you turn a part down, they hate your guts -- until they want something else from you. Then they love you again. I feel sorry for someone who doesn't know this for a year or two and ends up with footprints on his forehead." For a newcomer in movies, he says, "the train pulls out at 12:01. You're on it or you're not. The greatest ^ plateau in Hollywood is when they hold the train for you." This is scrappy, Irish-Catholic Long Island talking. In his own voice. Acerbic, confident, knowing that Hollywood stardom is waiting, and that he has caught the train.

With reporting by Sam Allis/New York