TELEVISION/RADIO’Probing’ Pavarotti: Famed opera tenor Luciano Pavarotti...

TELEVISION/RADIO

‘Probing’ Pavarotti: Famed opera tenor Luciano Pavarotti is the subject of a “probing” interview by “60 Minutes” correspondent Mike Wallace on CBS on Sunday. Pavarotti discusses rumors that he’s at the twilight of his career, the incident in which he was booed at Milan’s La Scala opera house, accusations of his lip-syncing at a live concert, and his weight problems. The program also includes performance footage of Pavarotti alone and in the 1990 “Three Tenors” concert in Rome, where Pavarotti joined Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras. The telecast falls on the eve of the New York Metropolitan Opera’s 25th anniversary party for Pavarotti and Domingo, who made their Met debuts in 1968.

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Advice to Ross: Former presidential candidate Ross Perot, who makes his debut as a talk-show host on CNBC’s “Talk Live” Saturday night, has gotten advice from some of his soon-to-be-contemporaries. Said CNN’s Larry King: “Don’t forget, Ross: You must ask every guest if, under any circumstances, they would run for President.” Advice from Mary Matalin, former George Bush campaign manager turned CNBC talk-show host: “Remember, Ross, you’re the host. Let the guests bring their own charts.” And from CNBC’s Tom Snyder: “Ross, book Dana Carvey!”

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Indefinite Suspension: Management at KROQ-FM (106.7) still has not made a decision about the status of “Loveline” host Jim (Poorman) Trenton who a month ago was suspended indefinitely. Trenton’s suspension stemmed from a midnight incident in which he took 200 people to the Hancock Park home of KROQ morning personality Gene (Bean) Baxter. The crowd had to be dispersed by the police, sources said. KROQ General Manager Trip Reeb would only say that Trenton was suspended for “violating station policies” and that a decision on his permanent status has yet to be made. Ricky Rachtman of MTV’s “Headbangers Ball” is filling in.

MUSIC

Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back: The long-rumored return of Frank Sinatra to Capitol Records is official and will be celebrated in a new album of eclectic duets with 13 pop stars including U2’s Bono singing an update of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” Due out in mid-October, the album was recorded in Hollywood this summer with a 62-piece orchestra. The rest of the album’s line-up consists of the 77-year-old Sinatra singing “What Now My Love” with Aretha Franklin, “I’ve Got a Crush on You” with Barbra Streisand, “The Lady Is a Tramp” with Luther Vandross, “New York, New York” with Tony Bennett, “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” with Natalie Cole, “Witchcraft” with Anita Baker, “Come Rain or Come Shine” with Gloria Estefan, “I’ve Got the World on a String” with Liza Minnelli, “Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Dry” with Carly Simon, “You Make Me Feel So Young” with Charles Aznavour, “Summer Wind” with Julio Iglesias, and a medley of “All the Way”/”One for My Baby” with Kenny G. Meanwhile, Sinatra makes a rare television appearance Oct. 3 when he stars as himself on Fox’s “Daddy Dearest.”

STAGE

Pasadena Season Announced: Three West Coast premieres will make up the winter/spring season at Pasadena Playhouse. Catherine Butterfield’s “Joined at the Head,” a 1992 play about a novelist who discovers her high school sweetheart has married a woman with the same name, will open the season, Jan. 16-Feb. 20. A.R. Gurney’s “The Fourth Wall,” another 1992 play about a suburban woman who transforms her emptied nest into an imaginary stage set, is slated for March 20-April 24. And Bernard Slade’s 1982 comedy “Special Occasions,” a two-actor play about an estranged couple who meet at a series of parental occasions, is set for May 15-June 19.

ART

Turner Painting on View: “Van Tromp Going About to Please His Masters, Ships at Sea, Getting a Good Wetting,” an important seascape by the 19th-Century English Romantic painter J.M.W. Turner that the J. Paul Getty Museum bought for a record price of more than $16 million in February, was placed on view at the Malibu museum this week. The painting generated much controversy about whether such paintings should be allowed to leave Britain when it was sold by London’s Royal Holloway College to finance repairs and maintenance at the school.

QUICK TAKES

Despite published reports Wednesday that the Wal-Mart chain was apparently refusing to carry Nirvana’s new CD, “In Utero” because of cover art depicting science class-type models of embryo dolls, a Geffen spokeswoman said that the record company had received no word of such a ban by Wal-Mart and was considering the report “a non-issue.” A Wal-Mart spokesman did not return phone calls from The Times. . . . The Disney Channel’s remake of the classic “Heidi” story, MGM’s feature film “Benny & Joon” and the triple-Emmy-winning CBS series “Picket Fences” were named recipients of the first Catholics in Media awards, which will be presented Sunday in Beverly Hills. Recipients are honored for depicting “what it means to be human, to struggle, to triumph and to reach for the spiritual dimensions of our lives.”