Morgan Fairchild, who’s experienced her share of onscreen catfights, says it never gets old – and she’s in top form as vengeful Sophia Blakely in MyNetworkTV’s upcoming series, “Fashion House,” co-starring Bo Derek.

“I think the stunt guys get a big kick out of it,” says Fairchild of her physical battles with Derek’s character, malevolent fashionista Maria Gianni.

“I had to take one of the directors aside, and tell him I had four years of Kung Fu training in Chinatown. I said, ‘I can give you a good fight, not the little girlie-shove stuff. You can take that and run with it.’ ” And they have. Several of the Sophia-Maria catfights have already landed on the Internet (youtube.com). “The response to the bitch-slapping scenes has been really fabulous,” Fairchild says. “I think people are really going to like it.” Fairchild, whose long acting resume stretches back 35 years, had never worked with Derek.

But they’ll get plenty of opportunities to diss each other onscreen in “Fashion House,” which premieres next month (Ch. 9) and will run for 13 weeks as part of MyNetworkTV’s telenovela- type programming.

“I’ve been curious why no one attempted to make the telenovela format for an Englishspeaking audience,” Fairchild says. “This is also an opportunity to update a lot of the primetime soap stuff from the ’80s and make it hipper.” It also gives two seasoned pros like Fairchild and Derek a chance to strut their stuff.

“We’re both bad guys, but I’m her bad guy, trying to wreck her life,” Fairchild says of their on-screen relationship.

“Sophia, to me, is a very interesting woman. Something happened to her long ago that warped her life, and Maria had something to do with that.

And, in some ways, Sophia has tragically and pathetically let that shape her life in her effort to get even.

“Vengeance is the main motivating factor in Sophia’s life.

It’s sad – but it also makes her interesting.”

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* Last weekend’s TNT movie about super-teacher Ron Clark scored straight A’s on its ratings report card. More than 6.8 million viewers tuned in to watch Matthew Perry (right) play the New York school teacher who turned around his Harlem class. That makes it the highest-rated cable movie so far this year.