He's eating breakfast in a West Hollywood restaurant, calling the waitress "ma'am" with Texan civility, and racking his brain to think of the most horrible thing that he did in High school,"Well once I...", he grins, slyly (what? what?)" . . stuck a toilet on top of the schools flagpole." Oh.

Okay, so you wouldn't want to be the priest stuck opposite him in a Confessional. Still, Lou Daimond Phillips Phillips is proof that good guys don't finish last. .

In 1987 he made a fast ascent to fame, starring as the doomed-to-die young teen sensation Ritchie Valens in La Bamba. Since then, he's made six movies, most notably Young Guns, Disorganized Crime and Stand And Deliver.

This winter he'll add two more films to his resume, a psycho thriller called Transit,m which casts him as a flashy L.A. cop chasing a serial killer, and Show Of Force, in which he plays a Puerto Rivcan drug lord opposite Robert Duvall and Amy Irving.

Despite its temptations, Hollywood suits Phillips fine. Kiefer Sutherland, his costar in Young Guns and Renegades , is a good friend. Phillips's 25-year- oId wife Julie Cypher, a director, has worked on several of his films.

Phillips refers to his wife as "a kindred soul." Like him, she's part Indian; she braided the three strands or beaded hair that her husband wears down his back.

The couple lives in Laurel Canyon, CA, where Phillips is currently writing a screenplay. He also hopes to direct someday and says he'd love to team up with his wife on a project.

Another toothy grin brightens his dark face. "My life, my career, my marriage, he says, are relatively charmed."

As if suddenly aware such niceness could trigger nausea, Phillips takes a nasty drag on his cigarette. The waitress appears and reminds him he's in a non smoking section. Sunnily, he volunteers to move. And why not'! As he explains, ''It's my only vice.''

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