TELEVISIONNew Library Home: The Academy of Television...

TELEVISION

New Library Home: The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences is moving its collection of TV scripts, photographs, books and memorabilia from its North Hollywood headquarters to USC’s Cinema-Television Library. The move should be complete by September. The holdings will be known as the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation Collection, but both the academy and USC will have say over future additions. USC Cinema-TV librarian Steve Hanson said that the collection, along with USC’s existing holdings, will be “one of the nation’s strongest academic TV archives.”

* Fox Movie Channel: Fox’s new cable service, fX, has announced plans for a sister cable channel, tentatively called the Fox Movie Studio and scheduled to launch toward the end of this year. Billed as a “contemporary movie-lover’s network,” it will exclusively feature programming from 20th Century Fox.

* Will He Stay?: Although talk-show host Tom Snyder has said publicly that he will stick with the CNBC cable channel rather than move to a rumored post-Letterman spot on CBS, his boss apparently isn’t so sure. CNBC President Roger Ailes said this week that he is “confident that we will know one way or the other” about Snyder’s fate by September. “He obviously believes there is still an opportunity there or he would have told us he’s still with us,” Ailes said, adding “we can’t get into a bidding war with CBS.”

* Tackling Violence: Walter Cronkite will host “Victory Over Violence,” a syndicated series of four hourlong specials designed to offer solutions to violent crime in America. The program will air locally on KNBC Channel 4 the week of Aug. 29.

THE ARTS

Forging Ahead: Undaunted by roadblocks that have sprung up for his two European public art projects, British filmmaker Peter Greenaway is moving ahead with plans to simulate a sunset over the Italian apartment of famed director Federico Fellini, who died earlier this year. Italy’s Ministry of National Heritage, citing security and technical problems, barred Greenaway from going ahead with his planned June 20 “The Cosmology of the Piazza del Popolo,” an evening light-and-music spectacle set in a central Rome plaza where Fellini had lived. However, the Italian press and Rome’s water and power authority, which is sponsoring the project, depicted the cancellation as politically motivated and Greenaway has since resubmitted his proposal to the ministry. Target date is now autumn or spring, 1995. Earlier this year, Greenaway’s critically acclaimed Geneva-based exhibit “The Stairs: The Location”--featuring 99 white staircases looking out on points of view of the city--was tagged by graffiti vandals shortly after its April opening. A five-man crew has repeatedly cleaned marks off the stairs’ plasticized paint coating.

* Second ‘Borders’ Performance: “Fronteras/Borders,” a Cinco de Mayo performance by students of the L.A. County High School for the Arts that erupted in controversy after a teacher at the school booed the performance, will be produced for the public at 7:30 tonight at Plaza de la Raza, a nonprofit arts center at 3540 N. Mission Road in Lincoln Park. The play will be followed by a panel discussion with arts and education professionals about the arts, free speech, racism and other issues.

MOVIES

The Roar Continues: After only 20 days of wide release, Disney’s animated film “The Lion King” zoomed past the $150-million mark at the nation’s box offices on Wednesday. That makes it the second fastest film to reach that point, behind Universal’s “Jurassic Park,” which took 15 days. “The Lion King” has now outpaced 1989’s “Batman,” which reached $150 million in 21 days.

PEOPLE WATCH

Life After Cobain: The two surviving members of Nirvana, the Seattle rock band whose leader, Kurt Cobain, committed suicide in April, made a surprise concert appearance in Olympia, Wash., Tuesday night during the first night of a local underground rock festival. Bassist Krist Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl sat in as deputy members of the Stinky Puffs, a whimsical group with a 10-year-old lead singer.

* Marriage Story Persists: Despite repeated denials from the Jackson camp, Dominican officials are continuing to insist that pop star Michael Jackson and Elvis’ daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, were wed in their country on May 25. In the latest wrinkle, Dominican immigration officials said that Jackson and Presley, accompanied by a six-person entourage, stayed together at the Casa de Campo hotel in Santo Domingo until the following day. Meanwhile, Judge Hugo Alvarez Perez, who says he performed the marriage ceremony, continued to offer documents allegedly signed by the celebrities, and called denials from Jackson’s representatives “a horrible lie.” “I am prepared to travel to the United States to take the records . . . so that an expert on the matter can verify that these are their signatures,” the judge said.