TV/RADIO’Band’ Plays On to NBC: In an...

TV/RADIO

‘Band’ Plays On to NBC: In an ironic twist, NBC, the network that began development of but later passed on “And the Band Played On,” the film version of journalist Randy Shilts’ acclaimed chronicle of the early years of the AIDS crisis, has bought the film from HBO for a network showing later this season. The film, which stars Matthew Modine, drew about 3 million viewers when it premiered on the pay-cable channel Sept. 11. Executive producer Aaron Spelling championed the NBC showing, saying, “The more people who see the movie, the more people we have in the fight against AIDS.” . . . Among other HBO films to be seen elsewhere are the multiple-Emmy-winners “Citizen Cohn,” “The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom” and “Teamster Boss: The Jackie Presser Story.” All three will be shown in syndication on Los Angeles’ KABC Channel 7, starting next spring.

Filmmakers to TV: Filmmakers including Francis Ford Coppola (“The Godfather”), Paul Schrader (“American Gigolo”), Philip Kaufman (“Rising Sun”), Ron Shelton (“Bull Durham”), David Puttnam (“Chariots of Fire”), Paul Verhoeven (“Basic Instinct”) and Jeremiah Chechik (“Benny & Joon”) will direct and produce a 10-hour multipart documentary series for cable TBS Superstation focusing on world events and other happenings in the 20th Century. The project, billed as “the definitive look at the last 100 years by the world’s most incisive filmmakers,” premieres in 1996.

Radio News: KFOX-FM (93.5), a Redondo Beach station that sells blocks of time to broadcasters, this week dropped its eclectic programming and is now broadcasting round-the-clock in Korean. The station, which is for sale for about $16 million, formerly had broadcast part of the day in Korean, had featured a show in Farsi, and also had evening programming in English that included an astrology show and reggae, jazz and blues music. . . . “Which Way, L.A.?,” KCRW’s daily series on urban life in Southern California, has received the 1993 Golden Medallion Media Award from the State Bar of California for its coverage of the Rodney G. King civil rights trial. The show has also received recent awards from the American Bar Assn. and Women in Communication.

POP/ROCK

Whitney Houston’s N.Y. Woes: Maybe singer Whitney Houston and her entourage really do need a bodyguard. First, at least nine police officers, many with guns drawn, stopped her limousine at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York two weeks ago because it was similar to those drug couriers use to make pickups. Then, two days later, Houston’s backup singer Olivia McClurkin was forced from her limo at JFK by armed robbers who slit open her luggage in what police said was apparently a search for drugs. Details about both incidents emerged late Tuesday after Port Authority Police Supt. Charles Knox issued an apology to Houston.

MOVIES

Call Them Madam?: In a case of art imitating life, a low-budget feature film, “Madam,” based on interviews with Hollywood call girls and attempting to chronicle “the real-life sexcapades of the girls behind alleged madam Heidi Fleiss,” has begun filming in Hollywood. And, starting Nov. 17, television’s “Melrose Place” is adding Kristian Alfonso (“Falcon Crest,” “Days of Our Lives”) as a recurring cast member--portraying a Hollywood madam who persuades Sydney (Laura Leighton) to work as an “escort.”

Diane Ladd Sues: Actress Diane Ladd has filed a $1.9-million suit against producer Stephen Friedman and the production companies Ducky Productions and Kings Road Inc., accusing them of backing out of the movie “Mother.” The suit says Ladd was to receive $400,000 whether or not she played the part and that she was paid only $10,000. She alleges Friedman told her agent and others in the film industry that he was unable to get funding for the project because Ladd was not a big enough draw to carry the film.

THE ARTS

Italian Art Attacker: Italian police on Wednesday captured Piero Cannata, 49--the same man who had been sentenced to a psychiatric hospital in 1991 after he hammered a toe off Michelangelo’s famed statue of David--after he was seen scribbling with a black marker pen on an important 15th-Century church fresco. Cannata was arrested after defacing about a square yard of “The Obsequies of St. Stephen,” painted by Italian Renaissance master Filippo Lippi on a cathedral in Prato.

QUICK TAKES

Actress Marla Maples gave birth to a 7 1/2-pound baby girl on Wednesday. Daddy Donald Trump named his daughter Tiffany Trump, in homage to his purchase of the air rights above the famed jeweler Tiffany & Co., which cleared the way for his Trump Tower on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. . . . Kevin Costner’s multiple Academy Award-winning movie “Dances With Wolves” will air in two parts on ABC Nov. 7 and 10. More than 50 minutes of never-before-seen footage will be added for the five-hour network broadcast. . . . Also having its network TV debut is Macaulay Culkin’s “Home Alone,” the highest-grossing comedy feature of all time, which airs on NBC Thanksgiving Day.