BEHIND THE SCENES Popular ‘Cheers’ actor has a recent second career — By Frank Lovece He’s probably the only ac- tor around who doesn’t mind when he steps onto a set and people say, ‘‘Rats!”’ Because they’re really say- ing, ‘‘Ratz!”’ —- shorthand for John Ratzenberger, who plays the ever-annoying postal worker Cliff Clavin on NBC’s “Cheers,” which airs Thursdays. John Ratzenberger Off-stage, Ratzenberger is very unlike his screen im- age. A serious stage actor who spent 10 years in En- gland doing street and clas- sical theater, plus bit parts in such movies as ‘‘A Bridge Too Far’ and “Gandhi,” Ratzenberger can be both a playful ad-libber and a thoughtful professional. For years, as he puts it, “I hung around watching and talk- ing to directors while other actors ate doughnuts and talked with their agents.” His observations came in handy earlier this season. Ratzenberger was the first actor on the show to direct an episode - a rarity, since “Cheers’’ co-creator James Burrows has directed virtu- ally every episode in the show’s six years. The 41-year-old actor’s big chance stemmed from unfortunate circumstances: Burrows had _ contracted pneumonia. “I* got a note from the producers asking me to see them,” Ratzen- berger recalls. ‘‘They said, ‘Jimmy’s sick. Do you want to direct an episode?’ I had been after them to direct when they were (also pro- ducing) ‘The Tortellis.’ So I said yeah, trying to be calm, but in the back of my mind I was doing backflips. “Ted (Danson) and every- body were wonderful,” Rat- zenberger continues. “‘I was the first to direct, so in a way I was _ representing them. I can’t praise them and the camera people enough.” Ratzenberger has since had other producers. ask to see his tape, and he’s scheduled to do more direct- ing next season. This summer, Ratzen- berger is off doing what he hasn’t done in years during hiatus: Nothing. Or, more precisely, spending time with his wife and their 1- year-old son. ‘I haven’t had a break since June 1986,” he says, when he played the lead in the six-hour British miniseries ‘Small World.” He can afford not to wor- ry: If acting opportunities ever dry up, now he’s got something to fall back on. Release the week of Sept. 4-10, 1988