BIG TEASE

C’mon! The newest Playboy (October issue) promises a pictorial of Donna Mills “as you’ll never see her on television.”

But the pics are strictly tease jobs--Mills with all these rumpled sheets wrapped around her . . . Mills turning toward the camera, showing off a teensy bit of backside . . . Mills wearing lingerie. . . .

Is this Donna Mills as we’ve never before seen her on TV? (Heck, what about all those cable showings of “Play Misty for Me,” with a brief flash of Mills’ flesh?)

Playboy’s celeb layouts are getting tamer than a People pictorial. Example: the recent swimsuit shots of supermodel Paulina Porizkova, suitable for pinning up inside any high school locker. (Most revealing of the “heart-stopping pics” has her holding a large banana leaf over her presumably naked breasts).

When stars do flash skin, it’s done with so much caution (see the recent peek-a-boo shots of Janet Jones and Jenilee Harrison) that camera angles and dramatic lighting--rather than body parts--catch the eye.

Asked about the mag’s new timidity, Playboy publicity manager Elizabeth Norris groaned: “We can’t win for losing. We get it when we do, and we get it when we don’t.”

She pointed out that Playboy’s photo subjects have control over what’s shot. And anyway, “We don’t feel pictures have to be nude to be sexy.”