MOVIESScorsese Tapped for Huston Award: “Casino” director...

MOVIES

Scorsese Tapped for Huston Award: “Casino” director Martin Scorsese will receive the third annual John Huston Award for Artists Rights Feb. 16 from the Artists Rights Foundation. Scorsese was announced as the award’s recipient Tuesday by actor Mel Gibson, who said during a Los Angeles press conference that Scorsese, vice president of the Artists Rights Foundation, has “truly been a crusader for artists’ rights, appearing at hearings in Washington and speaking to professional groups . . . and frequently turning his personal interviews into pleas for moral rights to become part of U.S. law.” The awards dinner, at Beverly Hills’ Century Plaza Hotel, will follow a two-day Artists Rights Digital Technology Symposium at the Directors Guild in Hollywood on Feb. 15-16. The award’s previous recipients are directors Steven Spielberg and Fred Zinnemann.

TV/RADIO

Lobbying for Family Values: The Media Research Center, an Alexandria, Va.-based nonprofit foundation that publishes the “Family Guide to Prime Time Television” and newsletters decrying what it sees as the liberal bent of the entertainment industry, officially opens a division called the Parents’ Television Council in Los Angeles today. Under the guidance of Executive Director Johnnie L. Perkins and Honorary Co-chair Shirley Jones, the council plans to encourage Hollywood to “become advocates for family values” and to “bring character, honesty, respect and responsibility back to entertainment programming.”

*

Focusing On Syndication: Talk-show host Marilyn Kagan broadcast her last regular show on radio station KFI-AM (640) Tuesday night. Kagan, whose program had aired weekdays from 7 to 9 p.m., discontinued her radio gig to devote more time to her TV talk show, which currently airs on KCAL Channel 9 and which Kagan hopes to take into national syndication. Kagan has not severed ties with KFI, however; the station said Tuesday that she will “fill in” on the station “as her schedule permits.” Meanwhile, former weekend host Wayne Resnick will take over Kagan’s KFI time slot, while his Saturday and Sunday 9 p.m.-midnight spot will be filled by “The Scott and Casey Show” with Scott Hasick and Casey Bartholomew. In another KFI change, Scott Greene will become the regular host of the weekend overnight shifts.

*

Kelley to Alternate Between Networks: Writer-producer David Kelley has signed an unusual deal with Twentieth Television, the television production arm of 20th Century Fox, that will have him bouncing back and forth between ABC and Fox Broadcasting with four new series. Kelley, the Emmy Award-winning producer and creator of “Picket Fences,” “Chicago Hope” and other programs, will produce his next and third hourlong drama series for ABC, while his second and fourth new series will be produced for Fox. The first ABC series is tentatively scheduled to premiere during the 1996-97 season.

*

O’Brien Cuts to Four Nights of New Shows: NBC has extended late-night host Conan O’Brien’s contract for a fourth year, but with a shortened schedule of new programs. Beginning the week of Dec. 11, “Late Night With Conan O’Brien” will broadcast original shows Tuesday through Friday, with Monday nights filled with reruns chosen from the more than 500 shows already completed. O’Brien said the new schedule will allow “more ambitious comedy segments” and remote shoots.

*

Honors for Burns, Pauley: Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns (“The Civil War”) received the 1995 Ralph Lowell Award, considered public TV’s highest honor, in Washington Tuesday. Burns’ “Baseball” last year became the most watched series in PBS history. . . . Jane Pauley was feted in New York Monday for her 20 years at NBC News. Attendees included Tom Brokaw, Bryant Gumbel, Linda Ellerbee, Katie Couric, Stone Phillips and Tim Russert, as well as Pauley’s husband, cartoonist Garry Trudeau.

QUICK TAKES

Steve James and Peter Gilbert, filmmakers of the award-winning documentary “Hoop Dreams,” have signed to write, executive produce and direct Hollywood Pictures’ “Pre,” the story of track star Steve Prefontaine, who was killed in a 1975 car accident at age 24. . . . “GoldenEye,” Pierce Brosnan’s debut 007 turn that has taken in a booming $57.2 million in two weeks of North American release, set a new British record over the weekend when it took in the equivalent of $5.6 million on 448 screens to post Britain’s highest non-holiday opening ever. . . . Lawrence Bender, producer of Quentin Tarantino’s hits “Pulp Fiction” and “Reservoir Dogs,” will discuss his latest film, “White Man’s Burden” (opening Friday), in a live chat on CompuServe’s EFORUM, tonight at 6.