Lionel Richie Was Almost Down and Out in Beverly Hills

The wife of popular pop-soul singer Lionel Richie was arrested Wednesday for allegedly hitting the pop singer and a young woman after Brenda Richie found the two of them together in the woman’s Beverly Hills apartment, police said.

Brenda Richie, 35, was booked on suspicion of corporal injury to a spouse, resisting arrest and battery and released on $5,000 bail. Police were called to Diane Alexander’s apartment at about 2:35 a.m. by neighbors “who said they heard a woman screaming,” Beverly Hills Police Lt. Robert Curtis said, adding that police saw Brenda Richie “striking and kicking” Alexander.

Police said the singer later said that he had been “kicked in the stomach area” by his wife. Both the singer and Alexander spurned medical attention from paramedics. . . . Lionel Richie had spent Tuesday denying reports that he plans to leave his longtime record label, Motown Records, for Capitol Records after the former’s sale to MCA Inc. for $61 million. Richie said he felt MCA could do a good job maintaining the status of the Motown label--for which Richie has two albums left in a multi-record contract.

As Touchstone/Disney’s “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” is making money hands over paws, it appears the film has sparked interest in past live action-animation efforts on the little screen. Last Christmas season NBC aired a half-hour animated-live action special from Ruby-Spears Enterprises called “Alex the Mouse” with Dick van Patten as Santa Claus and Donald O’Connor as the voice of Alex. It rated a 50 share (in the age 2-11 category) opposite a Disney Christmas special and “60 Minutes.” But with the success of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” NBC is perking up its ears at Alex again: the web is seriously considering a series spin-off for Saturday morning programming, renaming it “A Mouse, A Mystery and Me.”

It’s a good thing most video stores close before midnight because Walt Disney’s classic 1950 version of “Cinderella” will be released on videotape for sale this fall, Disney studios announced Tuesday. The release will be available at video stores Oct. 4--about three weeks before Disney arch-rival MCA’s lets “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” loose on video. Most recently re-released in theaters last year, “Cinderella” will initially be priced at $26.99, with a price increase to $29.95 on Dec. 1, and availability ending on April 30, 1989. Consumers can order the cassette at stores beginning July 12. “E.T.” will be released Oct. 27, at a retail price of $24.95.

A U.S. Senate committee Tuesday OK’d more than $1 billion in funding for public broadcasting through 1993-94. The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Tuesday unanimously approved an authorization bill calling for $304 million in fiscal 1991, $354 million in fiscal ’92 and $404 million in fiscal ’93. The bill also contains $200 million earmarked for replacement of the PBS satellite. Under the bill, about 80% of the $37 million that now goes to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s national programming fund annually would go directly to local PBS stations, leaving CPB with about $8.5 million to spend on new programs. The House of Representatives’ version of the bill, not yet out of committee, contains no amendments altering the CPB structure.

It’s Round 2 in November for Paul Newman in the suit brought against him by Bridgeport, Conn., delicatessen owner Julius Gold, who wants a share of the actor’s designer-food profits, attorneys said Wednesday. A lawsuit ended in a mistrial last week after jurors sent a note to Superior Court Judge Howard Zoarski saying they couldn’t ignore depositions that weren’t admitted as evidence but were inadvertently given to them during deliberations. But attorneys for both sides said that a new trial is scheduled to begin in Bridgeport Superior Court in early November.

The French Impressionist Claude Monet has joined the art-auction major leagues, effective Tuesday, when an anonymous buyer bid $24.6 million for his 1876 painting, “Dans La Prairie.” Sotheby’s London auction house reported the sale set several records: highest price for a Monet, highest price for any Impressionist work at auction, and third highest price for anything paid at auction. The price for the Monet, including a 10% premium, was more than double Sotheby’s pre-sale estimate of about $10.3 million.

There was much confusion Wednesday concerning the identity of a 19-year-old man first believed to be R & B singer El DeBarge, who was admitted to a hospital for a gash suffered when he was struck with a champagne glass during a row at a Sunset Strip nightclub. Apparently, the injured party is one Darrell DeBarge, a UCLA psychology student, and not the pop singer.