ARTHirst Wins Turner Prize: Damien Hirst, the...

ART

Hirst Wins Turner Prize: Damien Hirst, the British artist who has repeatedly shocked the public with sculptures using dead animals and dying insects, is this year’s winner of Britain’s Turner Prize, a prestigious yet controversial art award that aims to expand ideas of what constitutes art. The 30-year-old Hirst--who has pickled a shark and a sheep and made a rotting cow and a bull copulate with the help of hydraulics--was the hot favorite for the $30,970 prize, presented by musician Brian Eno Tuesday night at London’s Tate Gallery. Hirst is currently showing one of his most recent pieces at the Tate: the split carcasses of a dead cow and its calf floating in green formaldehyde. This year’s selection of Turner finalists provoked the usual cries of “rubbish” from traditionalists--Hirst’s competitors were Mona Hatoum, who used medical technology to video the inside of her body through every orifice; Callum Innes, whose abstract paintings include blank white canvases; and Mark Wallinger, who made his name showing a live horse as a work of art.

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A Hotel Full of New Art: Forget Picasso, Van Gogh and Warhol. Only the latest work of emerging young artists will be on view this weekend at the second annual Gramercy International Contemporary Art Fair at the Chateau Marmont hotel in Hollywood. Forty-seven U.S., Canadian and European art dealers will show their wares in bedrooms, parlors, kitchens and closets of the historic hostelry in this year’s version of a funky event that was a huge success last year. Admission is $5; the event runs Saturday and Sunday, from noon to 8 p.m.

MOVIES

Bullock, O’Donnell Cast in Hemingway Story: Move over, Demi Moore. Sandra Bullock just snared an estimated $12 million to star as the Red Cross nurse who inspired Ernest Hemingway to write his novel “A Farewell to Arms” in the upcoming New Line Cinema film “In Love and War.” The film, to be directed by Richard Attenborough, is based on the recently discovered diary and love letters of Agnes Von Kurowski, the Red Cross nurse whom Bullock will play. Chris O’Donnell, whose star power rose with his turn as Robin in “Batman Forever,” will play Hemingway. Filming is expected to begin in the spring and the picture is tentatively targeted for a Christmas ’96 release.

TELEVISION

No New Holiday Memories: For the first time since 1950, Bob Hope won’t be starring in a Christmas special this holiday season. But the 92-year-old comedian isn’t retiring from television, nor is his long association with NBC in question. “We came to the mutual decision not to do a Christmas special and instead devote our energies toward specials in 1996,” an NBC spokeswoman said. Hope’s spokesman said the comedian will, however, keep another custom long a part of his Christmas show: He’ll introduce this year’s Associated Press All-America college football team after the New York Giants-San Diego Chargers game Dec. 23.

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The Pope Goes to Rome (Wis.): Writer-producer David Kelley is offering details about his controversial script for the Dec. 8 episode of “Picket Fences”--in which Pope Paul John II is questioned in court about his views on homosexuality by lawyer Douglas Wambaugh (Fyvush Finkel). Kelley, who characterized the episode as “pretty reverential,” said CBS executives “completely gasped” when they first heard a brief synopsis of the script, which has the Pope making a surprise visit to Rome, Wis., where he becomes the only witness to a murder. Said Kelley: “It’s really almost a satirical look at the state of our criminal justice system today--the prosecutors have the Pope as a witness and it’s still tough to get a conviction.”

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New Lifetime Shows Planned: Cable’s Lifetime Television on Wednesday unveiled a new prime-time development slate aimed at strengthening the network’s appeal to female viewers. Starting in March, the channel’s “Intimate Portrait,” previously a monthly series of profiles on accomplished women, will move up to a weekly hourlong program. The network is also developing four new one-hour series for 1996: “Telling Secrets,” an “emotional” reality series produced by Henry Winkler; “The Cold Squad,” about a hot-shot team of police detectives who try to crack long unsolved crimes; “Byline: Sarah Stark,” focusing on a crime reporter in New York City who is also a housewife and mother; and “The Glass House,” which follows a female assistant U.S. attorney who specializes in the really tough cases.

QUICK TAKES

MCA/Universal Home Video’s “Apollo 13” starring Tom Hanks sold between 2.7 million and 2.8 million units in its first five days in release. Priced at $23, “Apollo 13” is outselling its nearest competition, “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie,” by a margin of 3-1, according to Video Business magazine. . . . Singer Joan Osborne goes online tonight at 6 on VH1’s “Center Stage” area on America Online. . . . HBO is estimating that more than 250 million people worldwide will watch its Dec. 10 special “Michael Jackson: One Night Only,” featuring the pop star in concert at New York’s Beacon Theater. The broadcast is scheduled to be carried in about 50 countries around the globe.