Following, Again, in Unforgettable Footsteps : Television: Natalie Cole says appearing in ‘I’ll Fly Away’s’ season finale reminds her of her dad’s role in changing a lily-white Hollywood.

TV or not TV . . .

FINALE: Singer Natalie Cole has chosen an auspicious TV occasion to make a bid for acting recognition.

She will guest-star on Friday as a community civil rights leader in what NBC is billing as the season finale of “I’ll Fly Away,” but which many think is probably the end of the series.

NBC extended the much-honored but low-rated show a few episodes, but the network’s promotion for the series has been less than impressive.

As for Cole, she says she asked a year ago to appear on the program, which stars Sam Waterston and Regina Taylor and has dealt with the civil rights movement in the South in the late 1950s and early ‘60s.

Cole says she made clear that she didn’t want to sing: “I felt that if I’m serious about acting, I would like people to see me as an actress. It’s less of a stretch if I’m singing, unless I’m playing a character who sings.”

In Friday’s finale, Cole says, “I play the mother of a girl who gets involved in a civil rights protest.” The mother decides to start a school that teaches nonviolence and race relations as part of the curriculum.

“This is historically based,” the singer says. “This mother did start a nonviolent school. I don’t know how long it was active but officials shut it down. They found a way to blackball it.”

Cole, whose spliced duet recording of “Unforgettable” with the voice of her late father Nat King Cole gave her career new impetus, says her interest in drama is not only in acting “but behind the camera, and writing as well.”

Nat Cole, a show-business giant who was one of the first blacks to have his own TV series, was a force for change in the lily-white society and entertainment industry of his time. Asked whether she thought about this while filming “I’ll Fly Away,” Natalie says: “Funny, but I did.”

In 1948, her father bought a house in Hancock Park, which touched off a fuss by some white neighbors.

“I was told about the story,” Natalie recalls. “It was basically that when Dad moved in, he was the only black. A lady approached him and said to him, ‘We don’t want any undesirables in the neighborhood.’ And he said, ‘If I see any, I’ll let you know.’ He was very cool.

“There was another story. A woman socialite asked him to tea at her home down the street. After a while, she asked him to entertain. He thought he was being invited as a guest. Being a gentleman, he sang for 30 minutes. And a week later, this woman got a bill sent to her. They thought they were getting a free show.”

During the making of the “I’ll Fly Away” finale, says Cole, “I got carried away and involved and wondered what my mother must have felt at the time. This series takes place during a time when I was very young. So it was my mother and sister who would have been involved.”

Her character in the show “reminded me of my mother--a very strong lady who wouldn’t take a lot of stuff.”

The singer has some of her own memories of the social structure of the time: “I remember when I was with my dad at the Sands Hotel (in Las Vegas) in the 1950s. We not only had to come through the kitchen, we couldn’t stay at the hotel. And even in the 1970s, I was performing and I was with my entourage in Birmingham (Ala.) and they refused to serve us at a restaurant.”

PERSPECTIVE: Vivid footage of how blacks have been portrayed in show business is part of a wide-ranging, two-hour documentary Sunday on KNBC-TV Channel 4, titled “Images and Realities: The African American Family.” Danny Glover and Esther Rolle host the broadcast, which airs at 5 p.m.

ON THE MOVE: Helen Shaver, who recently starred on Broadway with Alan Alda in “Jake’s Women,” sometimes seems to be here, there and everywhere. Tonight she turns up in the two-hour CBS television movie “Poisoned by Love: The Kern County Murders,” about a guy who does away with his wives.

She’d been working on two movies for USA cable in Toronto--”I was doing them both at the same time”--when she got the call for the CBS film. “I finished in Toronto one day and came down here the next day,” says Shaver, whose last network series was “WIOU,” about a struggling local TV news department.

JUICE: With the February ratings sweeps starting this week, George Wendt of “Cheers” turns up on CBS’ Bob Newhart series, “Bob,” on Friday . . . And Joan Collins is scheduled to play Roseanne’s “rich older cousin” on “Roseanne” Feb. 16.

MUSCLING IN: The once-lowly “CBS This Morning,” anchored by Paula Zahn and Harry Smith and in steady growth since last year, had its highest rating ever the week ending Jan. 22, attracting 15% of the audience. Competitors “Today” and “Good Morning America” each had 20% but they can no longer laugh off the CBS entry.

HANGING TOUGH: “Local girl makes good,” laughs Liz Thoman. And it’s hard indeed to believe that her probing magazine, Media&Values;, is marking its 15th anniversary. Long a force for media literacy education, the quarterly’s celebratory issue focuses on articles it has printed about television.

In 1989, Thoman also developed the Center for Media and Values, which, as she writes in the anniversary edition, “expanded each issue’s theme into a Media Literacy Workshop Kit to provide simple but creative teaching/learning tools for schools, religious groups and community organizations.” Those interested can call (310) 559-2944.

“Through television,” writes Thoman, “we are privy to both the profound and the mundane. And therein lies our struggle. How do we differentiate (and teach our young to differentiate) between what is significant and what is trivial in this seemingly endless stream of ‘information’?”

OUT OF GAS?: “Empty Nest,” a longtime winner on Saturdays, seems yet another victim of NBC’s slump as the show’s ratings have settled into a mediocre pattern.

BOOKINGS: Robert Culp does a guest turn on “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman” Feb. 13. And Jane Wyman also recently showed up as the visiting mother of the series’ star, Jane Seymour, in a role that seemed to leave the door open for further appearances.

BEING THERE: “Now I know why they shoot people at sunrise: Who wants to live at 6 a.m.?”--Hawkeye Pierce (Alan Alda) in “MASH.”

Say good night, Gracie . . .