WORLD NEWSItalian Arts Shake-Up: Three top Italian...

WORLD NEWS

Italian Arts Shake-Up: Three top Italian cultural figures were behind bars Thursday after a flurry of unconnected arrests put the spotlight of scandal on the country’s artistic elite. The most prominent figure was Francesco Sisinni, who as director-general of the Cultural Heritage Ministry is in charge of safeguarding Italy’s wealth of artistic treasures, historic monuments and archeological riches. He was arrested on fraud charges connected with a $20-million restoration of an 18th-Century castle in southern Italy. Also arrested was Adriano Aragozzini, the impresario behind the popular annual San Remo Song Festival, who is suspected of bribing local politicians in the Riviera resort. And Ferdinando Pinto, one of Italy’s most respected theater directors and head of the Teatro di Roma, was taken into preventive custody after the Mafia alleged that Pinto had them burn down his former theater so he could steal restoration funds.

MOVIES

Animated Mascot: Warner Bros. has joined with the D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) classroom program in the creation of a new animated mascot for the fight against drugs. The as-yet unnamed character, described as “a stately yet street-smart lion,” will be featured in a 90-second animated short to premiere in about 2,000 theaters Christmas Day as a lead-in to the upcoming Warners film “Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (The Animated Movie).” The mascot will also star in television public service announcements and an animated film to be used in fifth- and sixth-grade classrooms.

TELEVISION

Back on Board: Howard Rollins was back in front of “In the Heat of the Night” cameras this week for the first time since spending five weeks behind bars for probation violations stemming from a series of arrests for reckless driving and driving under the influence. The “Heat” cast and crew threw a welcome-back party for Rollins a few days after his June 16 release from jail. But Rollins didn’t start filming until this week because his character, chief of detectives Virgil Tibbs, had been written out of scripts while the actor served his sentence.

* Comedy Nods: Whoopi Goldberg, Damon Wayans and Martin Lawrence received three nominations each for the first “Soul Train Comedy Awards.” “Boomerang” was the most-nominated film with six nods and “In Living Color” topped the television category with seven. The show honoring African-American themed humor will air in syndication in mid-August.

* Marion’s Cafe: Marion Ross, who most recently was seen on “Brooklyn Bridge,” has joined the cast of NBC’s “Cafe Americain,” the Saturday night Valerie Bertinelli sitcom that premieres this fall. Ross will play the worldly-wise American owner of a Parisian cafe who hires Bertinelli, a recent arrival in the French capital.

* Paramount Suit: Paramount Pictures has filed a $500,000 suit against Dick Clark Productions, claiming two former workers took confidential information from “Hard Copy’s” “Caught on Tape” segment to create the new show “Caught in the Act,” which aired on KNBC Wednesday night. The lawsuit, filed prior to the show’s debut, also seeks a court order barring Clark from continuing production on the program, which the suit describes as “a rip-off of ‘Caught on Tape’ in every respect.” Both shows feature videotapes of lawbreaking in progress.

* Shielding Advertisers: ABC is so intent on foiling the Rev. Donald Wildmon’s campaign against its upcoming “NYPD Blue” that it won’t reveal the identity of advertisers, even to affiliate stations, until a day before the series premieres in the fall, industry sources say. Wildmon, head of the conservative American Family Assn., is seeking to dissuade sponsors of the racy police drama, whose pilot includes partial nudity and rough language.

QUICK TAKES

Academy Award-winning actress Greer Garson, 84, was honored by Britain for her public service Wednesday when she was named an Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire. . . . 20th Century Fox’s “Rookie of the Year” had a respectable opening Wednesday night, pulling in more than $1.65 million. . . . KCRW-FM radio host Warren Olney will moderate U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno’s first California town hall meeting at the Natural History Museum today. The station (89.9) will broadcast the event live from 10-11:30 a.m. Reno will also be a guest on Michael Jackson’s KABC-AM (790) talk show from 9:05 to 9:30 a.m. and will take calls from listeners.

Quotable: “It’s not the end of an era, just the end of my era. I’ve sort of outlived the culture at NBC.”

--John Chancellor, 65, during his final NBC News commentary Thursday.