POP/ROCKStreisand Mania: The nascent MGM Grand Resort...

POP/ROCK

Streisand Mania: The nascent MGM Grand Resort was still grappling Monday with the staggering number of calls received in conjunction with Barbra Streisand’s scheduled Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 concerts there. The shows’ 30,000 tickets went on sale by phone only on Sunday, and the resort logged nearly 400,000 phone calls in the first four hours and more than 1 million calls within the first 20 hours on its toll-free 800 lines alone. No figures were released for local and international calls received on the non-800 lines. Although the resort was still tabulating its actual sales, even with a top ticket price of $1,000 the event was branded “an obvious sellout.” The New Year’s shows are not without their controversy, however. Streisand spokesman Dick Guttman said Monday that the star will respond soon to a national group of women labor leaders upset that she is performing at the non-union resort. “We’re trying to determine what all the facts are,” said Guttman. “But it’s an issue she has been deeply involved with and is sympathetic to.”

New Nouveau: Meanwhile, Streisand’s personal collection of Art Nouveau and Art Deco decorative and fine artworks, gathered over three decades, goes on the auction block at Christie’s in New York March 3 and 4. Although Streisand was said to be deeply involved in the collection, sometimes designing whole rooms around single objects, Guttman said she is selling off the works in order to concentrate on new collections. Items include a Tiffany Cobweb lamp, estimated to bring $800,000 to $1 million, and a rare 1902 German Art Nouveau desk that Streisand acquired with earnings from her Broadway hit “Funny Girl,” which is expected to fetch $12,000 to $15,000. Christie’s called the artworks, which will be previewed in Paris, Tokyo and Los Angeles prior to the sale, “some of the finest selections of 20th-Century decorative and fine arts to be offered for sale in some time.” Also included in the auction, which is estimated to bring in at least $4 million, is a rare selection of Streisand memorabilia.

TV & RADIO

Scarlett Picked: British actress Joanne Whalley-Kilmer has been chosen for the title role of “Scarlett,” an eight-hour CBS miniseries based on Alexandra Ripley’s best-selling sequel to “Gone With the Wind.” Whalley-Kilmer, who called the part “one of the great women’s roles of all time,” is best known for her performance opposite John Hurt in the 1989 film, “Scandal,” which dramatized Britain’s controversial Profumo affair. Her other credits include various roles in British theater, film and television, the American films “Willow” and “Shattered,” and four additional films scheduled for release in the next six months. The $40-million production, scheduled to air in November, 1994, will be filmed in 53 locations in the United States, the United Kingdom and Ireland, and will feature more than 150 speaking parts. “Scarlett” traces the indomitable spirit of Scarlett O’Hara as she battles to rebuild her beloved Tara, restore her spoiled reputation and reclaim the love of Rhett Butler.

Gore vs. Perot: KCRW-FM (89.9) and KPCC-FM (89.3) will air National Public Radio’s coverage of tonight’s North American Free Trade Agreement debate between Vice President Al Gore and former presidential candidate Ross Perot live at 6 p.m. Both stations will also air NPR’s post-debate analysis, while Warren Olney will field calls from listeners on KCRW after the analysis. The Cable News Network will have exclusive live television coverage of the 90-minute debate at 6 p.m., followed by half an hour of debate analysis, with a rebroadcast of the debate at 9:30 p.m.

MOVIES

Stop or the Poster Will Shoot: Shotgun-toting police officers in the small Utah town of Monticello thought they were about to confront an armed man on Sunday, but instead found themselves face-to-face with a life-sized Sylvester Stallone poster. After reports that a man with a gun was seen standing inside a vacant building on the town’s Main Street, about a dozen officers rushed to the scene, cordoned off the street and stormed the room, only to find a cardboard cutout of Stallone promoting the movie “Stop or My Mother Will Shoot.” The cutout was removed by the building’s owner but not before Police Chief Kent Adair got his hands on it. “I disarmed it. I’ve got the gun right here on the wall,” he said.

QUICK TAKES

Twenty-four years after Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda hit the road together in “Easy Rider,” they did it again, leading thousands of leather-clad bikers in a roaring procession expected to raise more than $1 million for the Muscular Dystrophy Assn. As grand marshals of Sunday’s 10th annual Love Ride, Hopper and Fonda led about 17,000 bikers on a 50-mile ride through Los Angeles. . . . Fred Savage, the star of ABC’s “The Wonder Years” for six seasons, has a new role. Savage, 17, is now a senior running back and linebacker for Brentwood School’s top-ranked eight-man football team. His sporting glories have included a 31-yard touchdown against Campbell Hall. . . . Soprano Laurel Boyd, 30, of Laguna Niguel, won first place at the Metropolitan Opera National Council Western Regional Auditions on Friday at USC. Boyd, who competed against 30 other singers, will compete in the national finals in New York City in March.