MOVIESBox-Office Roar: Disney’s new animated musical “The...

MOVIES

Box-Office Roar: Disney’s new animated musical “The Lion King” broke box-office records in both Los Angeles and New York on Wednesday as it opened with exclusive engagements at Hollywood’s El Capitan Theatre and the Radio City Music Hall. About 6,000 movie-goers paid $43,435 in six sold-out screenings at the El Capitan, while more than 11,000 jammed into Radio City, ringing up $262,217 in sales. El Capitan’s previous top Wednesday opening was set last year by “Aladdin.” Advance ticket sales at El Capitan, where the movie is accompanied by a live stage show, already total more than $750,000.

TELEVISION

Calling All Look-Alikes: Fox-TV will conduct an open casting call in Burbank on June 30 for a young actress to portray controversial pop star Madonna in “Madonna: The Early Years,” a TV movie scheduled to air on the network later this season. The two-hour drama, expected to begin production in July, depicts the Material Girl’s personal and professional exploits from the time she arrived in New York as a struggling artist in 1978 to the success of her breakout album “Like a Virgin” in 1984.

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Daytime’s Own Doogie: ABC’s daytime show “Mike & Maty” is getting its own Doogie Howser as a special correspondent. Ten-year-old Michael Kearney, the world’s youngest college graduate, will join the show in July. Kearney began reading at 8 months of age, graduated from high school at age 6, and graduated this month from the University of South Alabama with a bachelor’s degree in anthropology. “Michael has a unique perspective on things,” said the show’s executive producer Steve Ober. “He has the innocence of a child and the insight of an adult.”

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The Top Talker: A stand-up comedian and writer from Baltimore is the winner of a much publicized “Talk Search” for an unknown host for the nascent NBC-owned cable channel America’s Talking, which launches July 4. Bill McCuddy, 37, will host a live, daily one-hour talk show. He beat out more than 10,000 folks who auditioned in a nationwide search. The top 20 finalists--including five from the L.A. area--will be showcased tonight on “Guess Who’s Talking,” a two-hour special on sister cable channel CNBC.

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He Won’t Give Up: Talk-show host Phil Donahue, whose bid to tape Wednesday’s execution of convicted North Carolina murderer David Lawson was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court, said he will continue to pursue the legal right to televise an execution, despite reports Lawson’s gas chamber death was particularly lengthy and gruesome. “From what I hear and read, it was awful,” said Donahue, a death penalty opponent. “But so was the killing of John F. Kennedy and executions in Sarajevo and I’m going to continue to make a First Amendment effort not to sanitize the reality.”

POP/ROCK

Ice Cube Branches Out: Rapper Ice Cube is starting his own label, Lench Mob Records, which will be based in Encino and distributed by Minneapolis-based independent company Navarre. The label’s first scheduled release is a July single and September album by rapper K-Dee, who made his debut on Cube’s “Lethal Injection” album. Cube is also the co-owner of the Inglewood-based production company Street Knowledge, for which he will film the movie “Friday” this summer. The new label does not affect Cube’s own recording contract with Priority Records.

DANCE

Ballet Olympics: More than 139 dancers from 40 countries are in Jackson, Miss., for the USA International Ballet Competition, popularly known as the Olympics of Ballet. The two-week competition, open to dancers who are not members of national companies, begins Saturday. The USA competition is held in Jackson every four years; international competitions in alternate years rotate among Paris, Moscow, Helsinki and Varna, Bulgaria. Previous winners of the International Ballet Competition, which often launches the careers of major dance stars, include Mikhail Baryshnikov (1969), Alexander Godunov (1973), Fernando Bujones (1974) and Amanda McKerrow (1981).

QUICK TAKES

Burt Reynolds and Loni Anderson’s divorce was finalized in a Florida court on Wednesday. Reynolds ended up with the couple’s $4-million Florida ranch and a $2-million waterfront mansion, while Anderson got a $500,000 North Carolina vacation home, $2 million to buy a new house and $15,000 a month in child support for their son. . . . Legendary scat singer and big band leader Cab Calloway remained in stable condition Thursday after being admitted to a White Plains, N.Y., hospital on Monday following a massive stroke. Calloway’s wife, Nuffie, told the New York Daily News that the 86-year-old jazzman is “coming to the end of the road.”