FONTAINE TO TAKE ‘MANSIONS’ ROLE

Academy Award-winning actress Joan Fontaine will replace Loretta Young in the ABC movie “Dark Mansions,” an Aaron Spelling production for next season that could become a prime-time soap opera.

Fontaine, who won the best actress Oscar for “Rebecca” in 1940, plays the matriarch of a wealthy Seattle shipbuilding family who finds herself in a powerful position when her husband (Dan O’Herlihy) is mysteriously killed.

Young, an Oscar winner for “The Farmer’s Daughter” in 1947, dropped out of the cast late last week, citing “artistic differences.”