THE MALIBU FILE

Gillian Anderson is having a bizarre life. Six years ago at the age of 23, she came to Holly wood with negligible acting experiences and got cast in a smart but iffy TV pilot as an impeccably groomed, unsmiling FBI extraterrestrial-buster endowed with prodigious gray matter.

That show, "The X-Files", took off like a shoot to become a fill-on small scren phenomenon, and, though she remained for a while so unknown she was introduced at a gala party for Fox TV affiliates as "Gilian Armstrong", Anderson, aka Dana Scully, soon came into her own as "the thinking man's sex sysmbol," a Clarice Starling for stay at-homes. Before long, the young actress who'd probably figured her best hope was to do theater and land the occassional role in an off-hollywoood independent flick, had become a Golden globe-winning icon, riding higher and faster than she or anyone could reasonably have predicted.