POP/ROCKA Noble Tradition: U.S. troops in Cap...

POP/ROCK

A Noble Tradition: U.S. troops in Cap Haitien and Port-au-Prince, Haiti, enjoyed their first live entertainment in five weeks when two of the Gatlin brothers performed Monday. Larry and Rudy (brother Steve didn’t make it) were a hit with the GIs. “It’s great timing,” said Pfc. Brian Cassidy, 21, of Concord, N.H., “We’ve been here over a month, and it’s been patrol, patrol, patrol.” The Gatlins also performed for U.S. troops in Somalia. “I remember seeing Bob Hope on TV when I was a kid, and I thought that was such a noble thing for a civilian to do,” Larry Gatlin said.

ART

LACMA Resumes Hours: The Los Angeles County Museum of Art will reopen on Tuesdays, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., beginning Nov. 1. The museum has been closed on Tuesdays since August, 1993, due to budget cutbacks, but a recent series of dinner parties raised sufficient funds to reinstate LACMA’s traditional public hours. The dinners, sponsored by the museum’s volunteer councils, raised more than $200,000 in ticket sales and donations.

TELEVISION

Fielding Dreams: Disappointed baseball fans can get a taste of what might have been as “Dateline NBC” offers a dramatized computer projection of how the strike-shortened season could have ended. With minor league players acting out the games, “Dateline” has the Yankees beating the Indians for the right to face the Reds, who beat the Expos. Veteran Chicago Cubs voice Harry Caray calls the action tonight and Friday.

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Early Letterman: For those who can’t stay awake for “The Late Show With David Letterman,” CBS is planning its first prime-time special of the Emmy-winning insomnia antidote. The hourlong special, to air at 10 p.m. Nov. 21, will be taped Nov. 11 in New York.

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Jennings in Middle East: ABC’s Peter Jennings isn’t the only network anchor in the Middle East this week, but he does have a special interest. When he opened the first American network TV bureau there in 1969, Jennings was accused by some groups of being “pro-Arab.” “At the time the U.S. press corps was so pro-Israel that if you did one story that was not favorable to Israel you were accused of being ‘pro-Arab,’ ” Jennings said in a telephone interview. “I think the coverage today is much more balanced--although everyone on all sides in the Middle East feels so much passion on the subject that no one ever thinks they’re fairly portrayed.” Jennings will cover the signing of this morning’s Israel-Jordan peace accords live on “Good Morning, America.” “We have devoted so many resources to covering wars in the Middle East that I think it’s important that we be there to cover the peace accords and the continuing story there,” he added.

MOVIES

Writer Vanishes: A screenwriter who worked on such Hollywood movies as “Super Mario Brothers” and “Mystery Date” was missing and feared the victim of foul play in Kingston, Jamaica, after the burned shell of his rental car was discovered in the countryside. Police were questioning a Jamaican who may have been the last person to see Terrence Runte, 34, a Chicago-based writer who was on the island to research a screenplay, according to his associates. Runte was last heard from early on Oct. 17, when he called his girlfriend in Chicago and said he had spent the evening at a nightclub in Port Antonio and was going to drive two people home.

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HBO Gets Evans Book: HBO Pictures has acquired motion picture and television production rights to “The Kid Stays in the Picture,” the memoir of producer and studio chief Robert Evans, whose roller-coaster career has included such films as “The Odd Couple,” “True Grit,” “Love Story,” “The Godfather” and “Chinatown.” David Brown (“The Player,” “The Sting,” “Jaws”), who brought Evans to Hollywood, will produce the film bio.

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Oscar for Sale: The Academy Award that Howard Koch won for co-writing the 1942 Humphrey Bogart classic “Casablanca” is going on the auction block. The 91-year-old Koch said that all the gold statuette is doing now is holding up books in his Woodstock, N.Y., home and that he wants the proceeds to help pay for a granddaughter’s graduate school studies. “Why shouldn’t it be useful?” asked Koch, who shared the Oscar with Julius and Philip Epstein. Koch’s Oscar is going on the block Dec. 6 at Christie’s in New York. The minimum bid will be $100,000, but he hopes for $150,000. In 1988, an anonymous bidder paid $143,000 at auction for Koch’s original “War of the Worlds” radio script. The 1938 Orson Welles production convinced thousands of radio listeners that Martians had landed in New Jersey.

QUICK TAKE

And then there’s the one about David Copperfield, who can make just about anything disappear. His $400,000 limousine was parked at the Grand Hotel in Milan, Italian media reported Tuesday. Right. It disappeared.