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

LEGAL FILE

The Road to Rehab: Actor Robert Downey Jr. was ordered Monday to spend at least the next month under 24-hour supervision at a “lock-down” drug treatment center. Downey, who has been arrested three times in the last month for drug-related offenses, will stay at the unnamed rehabilitation center at least until a scheduled Aug. 23 progress hearing. Malibu Municipal Court Judge Lawrence J. Mira warned Downey, 31, that he will be closely monitored at the treatment facility, and that it will be his last chance to avoid more time behind bars. The treatment center stay had been proposed by Downey’s attorney; the prosecution had recommended that the actor, who had been housed at the Men’s Central Jail hospital ward since July 20, be kept in jail for several more weeks.

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Weiland Progress Report Good: “It’s obvious Mr. Weiland is doing quite well,” Pasadena Municipal Court Judge Elvira Mitchell said Monday, after reviewing a rehabilitation center’s report on Stone Temple Pilots lead singer Scott Weiland. Weiland agreed last year to complete four to six months at the 24-hour facility after being arrested for possession of cocaine and heroin; as a result of his drug problems, his band put off a scheduled concert tour. Another court progress report has been set for Oct. 29; if Weiland is doing well then, he could be released, his prosecutor said.

MOVIES

Blacklisted No More: Four American screenwriters who were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era because of alleged Communist ties will finally be given their due. The Writers Guild of America, west, has asked that screenwriting credits on future prints and videocassettes be changed on three films. Michael Wilson will now be given screenplay credit for the 1956 film “Friendly Persuasion” (current prints contain no screenwriting credit); Abraham Polonsky and Nelson Gidding will be credited for writing the 1958 movie “Odds Against Tomorrow” (the original credit went to Gidding and John O. Killens, but it was later determined that Killens acted as a front for Polonsky); and Bernard Gordon will get credit for the 1963 film “The Day of the Triffids” (the originally credited Philip Yordan has since confirmed he was a front for Gordon). “These writers were denied a fundamental right of authorship--the right to credit for their work,” Guild President Brad Radnitz said. “History deserves the truth and these men and women deserve the credit for their work and the right to see a wrong acknowledged.”

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Too ‘Fierce’ for Audiences?: Actor John Cleese said Monday that his new film “Fierce Creatures,” a follow-up to his 1988 hit “A Fish Called Wanda,” will be delayed until at least Christmas because it flopped like a fish out of water during U.S. previews. “We’re having to re-shoot because we messed it up a bit,” said Cleese, referring to the comedy that reunites him with his “Fish” co-stars Michael Palin, Kevin Kline and Jamie Lee Curtis. Some of the black humor of the film--including the death of one of four characters played by Kline--was acceptable to British audiences, but didn’t go over well with initial American audiences.

TELEVISION

Festival to Celebrate Paley’s Legacy: The Museum of Television & Radio’s annual Television Festival will be renamed the William S. Paley Television Festival this year in honor of the late founder of the CBS network and also of the museum. The 1996 festival will take place Oct. 3-19 at the Directors Guild. To showcase Paley’s commitment to high-quality television, the fest will kick off with a tribute to the 1956-60 CBS series “Playhouse 90,” which produced dramas including “The Miracle Worker” and “Days of Wine and Roses.”

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Series Notes: ABC has pushed back the second-season premiere of “Murder One” from September to October due to an electrical fire on the sound stage that houses the show’s law office and courtroom sets. Production was to have begun this week but has been delayed until mid-August. No official premiere date has been set. . . . UPN Network has ordered a new comedy series for midseason, called “Social Studies,” starring stand-up comic Bonnie McFarlane as a youthful teacher who clashes with her school’s head mistress, played by Julia Duffy (“Designing Women”).

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Combs Legacy: Debt: Television comedian and game show host Ray Combs, who committed suicide eight weeks ago, left his family with at least $500,000 in debts, his widow said. Debbie Combs told the Cincinnati Enquirer that she and her six children, ages 5 to 18, have been relying on Social Security and meals from a food pantry while lawyers try to straighten out her late husband’s finances. Much of the bills come from the failure of the Ray Combs Cincinnati Comedy Connection, which closed in 1995.

STAGE

‘Twilight’ Encore Postponed: The La Jolla Playhouse has postponed its scheduled Dec. 10-15 engagement of Anna Deavere Smith’s critically lauded one-woman play, “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992.” Smith requested the delay, saying that she needs the time to develop her next play, “Press and the Presidency.” The Playhouse plans to reschedule “Twilight” for the 1997 season. Ticket-holders for the December dates will receive full refunds.

QUICK TAKES

“Twister,” the summer’s first big blockbuster that starred Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton as tornado chasers, will be released Oct. 1 on Warner Home Video. The suggested retail price is $23. . . . Although his new album, “Songs and Music From the Motion Picture ‘She’s the One,’ ” won’t be released for another week, rocker Tom Petty will premiere it for radio listeners tonight at 7, in a national broadcast carried locally on KSCA-FM (101.9). Petty will also take questions from callers at (800) 934-2221. . . . New L.A. County Museum of Art director Graham Beal guests on today’s “Politics of Culture,” airing at 2 p.m. on radio station KCRW-FM (89.9).