Smoking or Non-Smoking?" Asks the waiter at the restaurant. Knowing nothing of my lunch guests's personal habits or vices, I gamble on the non-smoking area and hope for the best. When Mark Derwin arrives, attired in a baseball cap, T-shirt, sneakers and jeans, it turns out I was right, though had I realized I'd be lunching with the Fiesta Man, my choice may have been different.

For the past three years, Mark Derwin - who's currently playing Guiding Light's A.C. Mallet and was previously on the Young and the Restless as Adrian Hunter - has also been know as the Fiesta Man, Mexico's answer to the Marlboro Man. Derwin has done five of the commercials, all of which his friends find extremely hilarious. "Whenever they get bored, they say 'Go get your Fiesta commercials,' and they crack up at them because they're so goofy, with another guy speaking another language out of my mouth." The unintentional hilarity no es importante.

What is importante is that the first two commercials turned this former carpenter into an official "working actor." He quit his interim job waiting tables and tending bar at a country club and lived soley - albeit frugally - on his $1440 Fiesta fee. Eventually the money ran out, and when he started to panic he took a job in telemarketing, convincing people to buy security systems for their homes. Within a week he was the company's No. 2 salesman.

Fast-talking phone sales seem a stretch for a fellow who once suffered from a severe case of shyness. "There was one girl I was interested in," says Derwin. "And we'd go places together...I could make her laugh and we had the best time, but when she'd ask what I was thinking about - which was that I wanted to kiss her - I couldn't tell her. What a jerk! One day she said to someone, 'Mark's a nice guy, but he's got no confidence!"

Shyness also attacked when - at age 25 - he decided to try the transition from carpenter to actor. "[Being a carpenter] was fun, but I always seemed to be outside in the winter and in the attic in the summer." His first acting classes were conducted by actor Michael LaGuardia. "I was so scared," he admits. "I had such tension my foot would be tap dancing when I was sitting and doing a scene. I didn't even know it until the teacher had to have someone come up and sit on my leg. All of a sudden I'd just feel this body on me."

Derwin credits LaGuardia with helping him develop confidence and faith in himself. "He taught me to always be positive, to be able to visualize my future. If you see what you want, you're going to get it."

He also credits his church for giving him a brighter outlook and a stronger sense of himself. "I'm an Irish Catholic boy. I go to church every Sunday; I always have. There was a time when I'd go just to watch a certain girl I liked, or because it was only an hour out of my life, or whatever. But I started listening and believing and it helped a lot; it gave me a great deal of confidence."

That confidence carried him cross country to Los Angeles three years ago to begin his new life and career. But by August 1989, having suffered numerous close calls and disappointments (except for the first two Fiesta ads) - as well as a bounced check from the telemarketing company - he felt his confidence dwindling along with his resources. "You get to the point where you wonder if you're ever going to work," he admits. "I couldn't even afford a stamp.

Friends would write me, and their wives would put stamps in so I could answer them." Then, in quick succession, he landed three more Fiesta spots; a Toyota commercial that never ran; and his first nighttime gig, an episode of Hardball in which his lines were cut, but he still got blown up in an elevator. Then he won the role on Young and the Restless, which only lasted until the following March, but Derwin wasn't disappointed. "I knew I'd get something else, but the last thing I ever suspected was that I'd move back to New York."

While awaiting his audition with Guiding Light's executive producer, Robert Calhoun, in CBS' L.A. commissary, he found an interesting way to get over his nervousness: He fell asleep. "It wasn't a matter of disrespect, it was just on of those things. I was on a sofa, and I put my feet up, and then I put my head down. All of a sudden I hear, 'Mark, Mark,' and I wake up and there's Betty Rae (Guiding Light's casting director) saying, 'Are you ready? It's your turn.' I go in and Robert Calhoun says, 'You want to splash our face with some water or something? And I'm like, 'Nah, I'm OK, let's just do it.' It probably was good for me, because I didn't have time to get nervous." Two weeks later Derwin was in New York to assume the role of Mallet (who was originally called Mark, then renamed A.C. in honor of Kim Zimmer's - ex-Reva Shayne - director/husband, A.C. Weary).

Two things about the character delight him: The fact that he doesn't shave very often and the way the writers inject humor and fallibility in him to balance out the tough-guy professionalism. "My favorite show was always Magnum, P.I., because Tom Selleck was never afraid of looking like a fool, of being a full character instead of Mr. Perfect." Derwin says he's had a lot of image-busting takes that never made it to the screen, such as struggling to get his gun out or put on his bulletproof vest. "I had it on backwards, upside down. In the final take it looked real cool, but in between we were laughing like crazy because I was such a moron with this thing. But my character has really lightened up."

Derwin has also learned to lighten up in his personal life. "I'm a big optimist. Negative thinking is such a waste of time. I have a friend who's a real pessimist. I said to him once, 'You know what your problem is? Your glass is always half empty.' And he said, 'No it's not. It's just not big enough.' My God, that is the ultimate pessimist. Some people feel the need to worry. I don't. Maybe I'm irresponsible, but I just refuse to deal with things like that. Why worry?"

Why indeed? Derwin has a career he loves. He is quick to say, "If the worst scenario was I had to stay here, it would be a great scenario." He adores his parents, sister and brother, and he has a nephew and nieces who satisfy his paternal instinct, "even through my father is pressuring me to carry on the family name," He's even managed to find a great studio apartment in New York. "Whoever lived there before painted the ceiling pastel green and a couple of the walls a pastel orange, so it's bright. And it's got a nice, clean bathroom, which is the key to a good apartment." Who could ask for anything more?