TELEVISIONGumbel Defends Chung Firing: Bryant Gumbel says...

TELEVISION

Gumbel Defends Chung Firing: Bryant Gumbel says CBS did the right thing in dumping Connie Chung as “Evening News” co-anchor. “I don’t want to speculate what happened in their shop, but I am a big Dan Rather fan,” Gumbel says in TV Guide. “It’s a better program with him alone. He’s the one with credibility.” Chung was fired last month after two years on the program with Rather. Gumbel, a “Today” show host on NBC, attributed long-repeated claims that he’s an arrogant and controlling broadcaster to racism. “Find me a successful black man in television who has not been accused of being arrogant. It happened to Robert Guillaume, to Flip Wilson, to Bill Cosby, to Arsenio Hall,” Gumbel said. “And after a while you start to say, ‘Well, is this coincidence?’ I tend to think not.”

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Hero Visits Dave: CBS says Air Force Capt. Scott F. O’Grady, the downed pilot rescued in Bosnia-Herzegovina, has agreed to appear on “The Late Show With David Letterman.” The date of the pilot’s appearance is being arranged.

MOVIES

Who’s Oscar?: “Pulp Fiction” won best picture while Brad Pitt and Sandra Bullock took home both the best male and female performance awards and the “most desirable” honors at the 1995 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank on Saturday. Bullock, who won for her role in “Speed,” also shared the best on-screen duo award with Keanu Reeves. Pitt won for “Interview With the Vampire,” which also won the breakthrough performance award for Kirsten Dunst. The coveted best kiss honors went to Jim Carrey and Lauren Hall in “Dumb and Dumber,” and Carrey also won for best comedic performance in that film. “Speed” won the most awards, four, including best action sequence and best villain, Dennis Hopper.

ART

Body of Works: The Biennale International Art exhibit Saturday celebrated its 100th birthday in Venice, Italy, with provocative works on the human body. More than 70 countries brought hundreds of artists to show the cutting edge of contemporary art in 27 pavilions and in locations around St. Mark’s Square. The overall theme was “Imprints of the Body and Mind,” but most artists allowed their imagination to roam freely. Americans took two of the top Golden Lion prizes awarded Saturday: Ronald B. Kitaj for painting and Gary Hill for sculpture. The Biennale, the oldest and most prestigious contemporary art festival, has always been the focus of political and artistic controversy. This year was no exception. Political controversy erupted immediately when critics discovered that the old permanent Yugoslavia pavilion was turned over to Serbia, while Slovenia and Croatia had found exhibit halls outside the main grounds and Bosnia was nowhere to be found.

PEOPLE

Dear Mr. President: Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert De Niro, Harry Belafonte and Mercedes Ruehl are just some of the celebrities asking President Clinton to free 150 Haitian children being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. “Relatives of these children and resettlement agencies based in the U.S. have already been contacted and are ready and willing to accept for the detained group of minors at Guantanamo,” said the letter, dated Friday. Others who signed the letter are: Laura Dern, Danny Glover, Jack Lemmon, Gregory Peck, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Mary Steenburgen, U2’s Bono and Jonathan Demme.

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Gilda’s Legacy Set to Heal: Gene Wilder opened a special club for cancer patients in New York last week to honor his late wife, Gilda Radner. It’s called Gilda’s Club, and it is the first of several planned centers that will provide free social and psychological support to cancer patients across the country. Radner, best known for her work on “Saturday Night Live,” died of ovarian cancer in 1989. The first visible thing upon walking into Gilda’s Club is a mural of Radner beckoning people inside and a street sign that reads, “It’s Always Something,” the favorite saying of her “SNL” character Roseanne Roseannadana.

QUICK TAKES

Residents of Metropolis, Ill., will present an 8-foot plywood get-well card with thousands of signatures to Christopher Reeve, who remains in serious condition but has regained some movement after a riding accident Memorial Day weekend. The small town, which is the only U.S. city with the same name as Superman’s fictitious home, put the card on display for its 17th annual Superman Celebration this weekend. . . . Screenwriter Joe Eszterhas on Sunday announced that he has left International Creative Management and will be represented by the William Morris Agency. . . . Los Angeles Mayor Richard J. Riordan will honor musicians Horace Silver and Ray Brown, the latest Los Angeles residents to be awarded the prestigious American Jazz Masters Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, in a ceremony at Eagle Rock High School on Tuesday at 10:30 a.m.