MOVIESMaking the Leap: Basketball great Michael Jordan...

MOVIES

Making the Leap: Basketball great Michael Jordan was set to announce this morning in New York that he’ll make his big screen debut opposite such Looney Tune characters as Bugs Bunny, Tweety Bird and the Tasmanian Devil in a Warner Bros. live-action/animation film that will be released late next year. Jordan and the Looney Tunes gang are no strangers--they’ve appeared together in recent TV commercials for McDonald’s, and Jordan and Bugs teamed up for Nike commercials in 1992 and 1993.

PEOPLE WATCH

Connie’s Bundle of Joy: Connie Chung may have lost her anchor seat at CBS News, but she has already found a new job--as a mother. “We are happy to confirm that after a long period of waiting, we have adopted a boy, Matthew Jay Povich,” Chung and her husband, talk-show host Maury Povich, said in a statement issued Monday morning. For several years, Chung, 48, and Povich, 56, have publicly discussed their desire to have a baby. In 1990, Chung announced she was cutting back on her work schedule so she could concentrate on getting pregnant, but the couple was unable to conceive.

*

Back to School: Robert Fitzpatrick, former chairman of Euro Disney, the Walt Disney Co. theme park near Paris, will become dean of the Columbia University School of the Arts on July 1, a university spokeswoman confirmed Monday. Fitzpatrick, who left Euro Disney in 1993 during a period of poor attendance and some anti-American backlash against the theme park, went on to head his own international arts and entertainment consulting firm. Fitzpatrick is also a former president of CalArts and served as director of the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival and the 1987 Los Angeles Festival. Fitzpatrick could not be reached for comment Monday.

TELEVISION

Induction Time: Michael Landon, Jim McKay, Bill Moyers, Dick Van Dyke, Betty White and the writing-producing team of Richard Levinson and William Link have been selected as the latest group of TV legends to be inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. The 11th annual induction ceremony will take place this fall in Los Angeles.

*

Anchor Away: KNBC news anchor Paul Moyer will be absent from the 5 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts for about a month while he recuperates from quadruple bypass surgery he underwent over the weekend. A KNBC spokesperson said the operation was successful and that Moyer was resting comfortably. Chuck Henry and Jess Marlow will fill in for Moyer during his recuperation.

RADIO

TV Show Beckons: KFI-AM (640) is losing popular nighttime talk-show host and comedian Stephanie Miller to television. Miller, who has been with the station since January, 1994, will depart after Friday’s program to concentrate on the syndicated late-night TV series in which she will star this fall. Therapist Marilyn Kagan will move into KFI’s 7-9 p.m. weeknight slot, with the 9 p.m.-midnight show going to the man who goes only by the moniker Mr. KFI.

LEGAL FILE

‘Bat’ Flap: Artist Andrew Leicester filed a multimillion-dollar copyright infringement lawsuit Monday against Warner Bros. Inc. for using his Downtown Los Angeles public artwork, “Zanja Madre,” as part of Gotham City in “Batman Forever” and various merchandising items. The Minneapolis-based artist claims in his suit that Warner Bros. did not seek his permission to use the work, located at the 801 Tower at 8th and Figueroa streets, as a central design element of the blockbuster film. The suit alleges that Warners’ unauthorized use of Zanja Madre “corrupted” Leicester’s artwork by portraying it “as an integral part of an openly lurid, frenetic and violent Gotham City,” when the work was originally created as “an oasis and allegorical garden of calm and tranquillity.” A spokesperson for Warner Bros. said that the studio doesn’t comment on lawsuits.

POP/ROCK

B.I.G. Arrested: Rap singer Notorious B.I.G., whose “One More Chance” is No. 5 on the Billboard singles chart, was arrested early Sunday by New Jersey state police after he performed in a Concord Township nightclub. The Brooklyn performer, whose real name is Christopher Wallace, was wanted by police in Camden, N.J., on robbery and aggravated assault charges. Earlier this year, he was accused of breaking a man’s jaw and stealing his portable phone, jewelry and beeper. Wallace, 23, was held Monday in the Delaware County Prison without bail.