WHAT DID HERSHEY BAR?

Barbara Hershey’s been getting lots of critical acclaim--and press--over “Hannah and Her Sisters.” Which means she’s done lots of talking about the film and how it was to work with Woody Allen. And she’s talked about her career. Well, some of her career.

Seems most interviewers have been asked (by her publicist) to not ask her about her days as Hollywood’s most famed Flower Child.

“She doesn’t want to talk about those days. Why should she?” said her rep. “Why go into all that again?”

And lots of articles haven’t. They’ve tiptoed around that period of her life. (A recent American Film cover story refers to that area as “Area X.” During which time, the magazine surmised, she had the “misfortune” of becoming “a public hippie.”)

To refresh: She changed her last name to Seagull (a sign of her symbolic link to the dead sea gull she found in “Last Summer”), lived with David Carradine in a house on a dirt road in Laurel Canyon (where she sometimes played her flute), posed with Carradine for Playboy, had a son named Free (now changed to Tom), wore lots of fringe and headbands and was practically booed off “The Dick Cavett Show” (she was guesting with Carradine) when she nursed her child publicly.

So what’s the big deal?

“It’s just that all that isn’t significant in terms of who I am now,” sighed Hershey. She gave us a call just before leaving for Baltimore, where she will play Danny DeVito’s wife in “The Tin Men” (also starring Richard Dreyfuss).

“It isn’t that I won’t talk about those days. God knows they were over-written about. It’s just that it was such a little piece of my life. It’s all a matter of putting it into perspective. My emphasis (now) is to talk about my movies.”

But, reminded a reporter, she used to talk about lots of other things.

Hershey laughed. “Yes--and I learned my lesson!”