Arts and entertainment reports from The Times, national and international news services and the nation’s press.

THE ARTS

Turning Down Tony: Broadway actress Julie Andrews on Wednesday announced that she was refusing her Tony Award nomination for “Victor/Victoria,” saying, “I prefer instead to stand with the egregiously overlooked.” Her best actress nomination was the only recognition the show received this year, and she was angered by the snubbing of her cast mates and the production itself. Andrews, 60, has never won Broadway’s top prize. The Tony Awards’ organizers said, however, that Andrews’ name would remain on the ballot so she still could win.

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Trouble in San Diego: San Diego Symphony musicians say they will not perform three concerts this weekend unless they are paid back wages that have been due since April 15. The struggling orchestra, which narrowly avoided bankruptcy earlier this year, still has not raised enough money to pay its 79 musicians. On Monday, three of the orchestra’s 10-member administrative staff quit because they have not been paid, said board President Elsie Weston, who refused to speculate on whether this weekend’s concerts will be performed.

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Healthy Contemporary Art Sales: An Abstract Expressionist masterpiece by Willem de Kooning sold for $3.7 million at Christie’s Tuesday night, topping a $15.3-million sale that brought in the New York auction house’s biggest Contemporary take in more than three years, according to Christie’s Chairman Christopher Burge. Nearly half of the paintings sold went for more than expected, Burge said, and only 20% of works offered failed to find buyers--the best sale rate in the Contemporary market since November 1989.

TV/RADIO

‘Tornado!’ Takes Off: Fox’s effort to capitalize on interest in the big action movie “Twister” paid off as its TV movie “Tornado!” registered the best ratings for a Fox Tuesday night movie since “The O.J. Simpson Story” on Jan. 31, 1995. “Tornado!” was seen in about 9.8 million homes--about twice as many as Fox normally gets with its Tuesday movies. And that turned out to be good for “Twister” too--because Warner Bros. bought commercial time in “Tornado!” to promote its Friday theatrical release.

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Boyz Are Back: Brothers Eric and Nick Vidal--known as the Baka Boyz--returned to their 6-10 a.m. shift at KPWR-FM (105.9) on Wednesday. The brothers, who tied with KFI-AM (640) host Bill Handel for fourth place for the key morning audience in the latest Arbitron rankings, had been gone from KPWR since April 25 in a dispute that was said at the time to have involved “management changes” at the hip-hop station. KPWR General Manager Marie Kordus declined to comment on the dispute, but said, “They’re back, everything’s fine and we’re rolling ahead.”

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ABC’s Election Offer: ABC joined the other major networks Wednesday with an offer of free air time to the major presidential candidates. ABC said the candidates will be offered a live, one-hour, prime-time special that will air during the campaign’s final week. No questions will be posed to the candidates. ABC expects they will “discuss with each other and the American people the issues they believe to be most important in the election.”

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CBS News Changes: Along with the expected announcement Wednesday that Jane Robelot and Mark McEwen will become the new anchors of “CBS This Morning” came word that Jose Diaz-Balart, an anchorman from Miami, will join the team, splitting co-anchoring duties with McEwen. All three begin Aug. 5. Meanwhile, the network said former anchors Paula Zahn and Harry Smith will remain with CBS News, Zahn as anchor of the Saturday edition of the “CBS Evening News” and a contributor to “48 Hours.” Smith, whose future role is still being determined, may do a regular segment on the “CBS Evening News” and substitute anchoring on “Sunday Morning.”

POP/ROCK

Hootie Hangs On: Hootie & the Blowfish’s “Fairweather Johnson” maintained its place at the top of the national sales chart this week--but just barely, according to SoundScan. The album--which entered the charts at No. 1 last week after selling 411,000 copies--sold about 259,000 copies in its second week, just topping the opening sales of 254,000 albums by the Dave Matthews Band’s “Crash.” The Cranberries’ “To the Faithful Departed” also debuted strongly, in fourth place with 180,000 copies sold.

MOVIES

Stunt Death Suit Narrowed: A judge on Wednesday dropped actor-comedian Eddie Murphy, director Wes Craven, Paramount Pictures and a movie stunt coordinator as defendants in a $10-million wrongful-death suit filed by the family of a stuntwoman who died on the set of Murphy’s movie “Vampire in Brooklyn,” said Don Etra, an attorney for the studio and filmmakers. Superior Court Judge Loren Miller, however, allowed the suit to proceed against the manufacturer of an air bag used by stuntwoman Sonja Davis, who died after performing a “backward high fall” on Nov. 3, 1994. Cal/OSHA, the state workplace safety agency, had fined Paramount about $29,000 after the accident, but the citations were dismissed and the fines nullified by a Cal/OSHA judge about two weeks ago, Etra said.