MOVIESPlay It Again, Shirley: Shirley MacLaine will...

MOVIES

Play It Again, Shirley: Shirley MacLaine will reprise her 1983 Oscar-winning “Terms of Endearment” role as Aurora Greenaway in the movie’s sequel, “The Evening Star.” “It’s Aurora 20 years later,” MacLaine publicist Dale Olson said. Robert Harling, who scripted “Steel Magnolias” and the “Terms” sequel, will make his directing debut with “Star.” Besides MacLaine’s best actress Oscar, “Terms” also won for best picture, director, screenplay and best supporting actor Jack Nicholson. Actress Juliette Lewis will play Aurora’s granddaughter Melanie, and conversations are reportedly taking place with Nicholson to come back as ex-astronaut Garrett Breedlove. Polly Platt and David Kirkpatrick are producing with Rysher Entertainment, and Paramount Pictures will distribute. Scheduled to start in mid-November, the movie will be shot in Houston, New York and Los Angeles and will use the same Houston house that was seen in “Terms of Endearment.” The story is a continuation of the books of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry.

PEOPLE WATCH

Slow but Steady: Christopher Reeve is making slow but steady progress after a horse-riding accident that left him paralyzed, says his brother Benjamin Reeve. “He can say three or four words at a time now,” Benjamin Reeve told the syndicated TV show “American Journal.” “We talk about everything from the food to the people who visit to successes with the children and the things they do each day,” he added, referring to Christopher Reeve’s two sons and a daughter. The 42-year-old actor, best known for his title role in the “Superman” movies, is being treated at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in West Orange, N.J. He broke his neck after being thrown from a horse while riding in northern Virginia on Memorial Day weekend.

TELEVISION

Anchor Chairs: KABC-TV Channel 7 has announced that weekend anchor Marc Brown will become the new co-anchor, paired with Laura Diaz, of the station’s weeknight “Eyewitness News” at 6, beginning next Tuesday. The announcement was made by News Director Cheryl Kunin Fair. Brown replaces anchor Paul Dandridge, who left KABC on Aug. 31. Brown has been co-anchoring “Eyewitness News” on weekends for the past three years and reporting for the broadcast since he joined the station six years ago. He has won four Emmys, including three for his work commemorating the 25th anniversary of the 1965 Watts riots. No reason was given for Dandridge’s departure.

DANCE

Joffrey’s First Sander: The newly reconstituted Joffrey Ballet (now located in Chicago) has announced that its repertory for the 1995-96 season will include “Inner Space,” a trio by Turkish-born, Long Beach-based choreographer Mehmet Sander. It will be the first Sander piece acquired by the company and requires dancers to interact inside a transparent plastic cube. Sander’s own dancers will perform “Inner Space” on Sept. 29 at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions in Hollywood, along with “Militia,” a new work for his ADO (Animate Dance Objects) teen group.

MUSIC

Brava!: Soprano Carol Vaness, once a student at Cal State Northridge, now an international opera singer, will be honored as a Merola Opera Program alumna by San Francisco Opera tonight at the San Francisco Performing Arts Library. Vaness, 43, will receive the first-ever Merola Distinguished Alumni Award; she participated in the 1976 Merola summer opera training program of the Bay City company. Since then, in eight seasons, she has sung 10 leading roles for San Francisco Opera and has been a highly visible member of the Metropolitan Opera, which she joined in 1984, as well as numerous British and European companies.

LEGAL FILE

Designer Sues Jackson: Pop star Michael Jackson and Sony Music Entertainment have been hit with a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by Ron Arad, a renowned designer whose “Big Easy” furniture is on display in such museums as the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. The suit, filed in a federal court in Massachusetts, alleges that Jackson used Arad’s futuristic-styled work without permission in the entertainer’s recent Sony music video, “Scream.” According to the suit, Arad would never have allowed Jackson to display his work in the video because the designer, who is Jewish, disapproves of “anti-Semitic” lyrics contained in Jackson’s “HIStory” album, which includes the “Scream” duet with Janet Jackson. The “Scream” video won best dance video, art direction and choreography honors at the MTV Video Music Awards last Thursday in New York.