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

TELEVISION

Remember, It’s Just TV: Still smarting over the back-stabbing, anything-goes oil business epitomized on “Dallas,” the oil industry will fight back by airing a TV commercial in nine states (including Texas, but not California) during tonight’s two-hour CBS “Dallas” reunion movie. In an attempt to “set the record straight,” the 30-second spot features actress Susan Howard, who played Donna Culver Krebs on the 1978-91 show, saying: “Back on the hit series ‘Dallas,’ most of my co-stars played greedy oilmen. But that’s TV--not real life.” Howard, who goes on to extol the industry’s commitment to the environment and energy education programs, does not appear in the reunion movie. Warner Bros. Television, which produced the movie, had no comment.

Paging Richard Jewell?: “60 Minutes” correspondent Mike Wallace is promoting the establishment of a national news council similar to one that’s operated for years in the state of Minnesota, in which a panel of journalists and non-journalists rule on the fairness of news stories when their subjects complain. The failure of a similar effort in the mid-’70s and the hostility of many in the news business are working against him. But to Wallace, who has been advocating the idea in media circles, it’s only fair that journalists who criticize the work of public figures and business leaders be subject to the same scrutiny. “The individual who feels a wrong has been done, you can either write a letter to the editor or you can sue,” he said. “To sue for libel can sometimes cost millions and it’s a long and draining process.”

A&E; Takes On ‘Evita’: Proclaiming “the movie is fiction, our ‘Biography’ is fact,” cable’s A&E; announced plans Thursday to premiere “Evita: The Woman Behind the Myth,” an installment of the network’s acclaimed “Biography” series, on Dec. 20 (with a repeat Dec. 26). The special includes interviews with friends and rivals of the late Eva Peron and a high-ranking official in the Peron administration. Also sharing their views are “Evita” lyricist Tim Rice and Madonna, the star of Hollywood Pictures’ upcoming movie version of “Evita.”

STAGE

Love! Valour! Casting!: Nathan Lane is busy with a movie project, but four other members of the Broadway cast of “Love! Valour! Compassion!”--including Lane’s replacement, Mario Cantone--will star in Terrence McNally’s Tony Award-winning musical when it comes to Los Angeles’ Geffen Playhouse Dec. 3-Jan. 5. Joining Broadway veterans Cantone, Randy Becker, Richard Bekins and T. Scott Cunningham will be Mitchell Anderson (TV’s “Party of Five”), William Bumiller and Ian Ogilvy. Tickets go on sale Monday at the Geffen box office.

ART

Sold!: Las Vegas casino mogul Stephen Wynn, who on Tuesday paid a record $2.9 million for a Manet portrait at Sotheby’s (not the $6.05 million reported here Thursday), shelled out another $3.4 million at Christie’s Wednesday to buy Pablo Picasso’s 1906 painting of a Spanish village, “Gosol.” Meanwhile, Christie’s top prices went to two Claude Monet paintings, which commanded $13.2 million each. The sale fetched a total of $82.9 million--within Christie’s pre-sale estimate--and 80% of the works sold. Also Wednesday, a Louis XV tureen sold at Sotheby’s for a record $10.3 million--the highlight of a sale of French Royal Silver that brought in a landmark total of $15.3 million, nearly twice the highest previous total for any silver auction.

Grynsztejn Takes On Carnegie International: Madeleine Grynsztejn, a former curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, has been named curator of contemporary art at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, effective Jan. 15. The position carries with it the high-profile task of organizing the 1999 installment of the Carnegie International, the museum’s closely watched quadrennial survey of international contemporary art.

QUICK TAKES

Despite a spokeswoman’s assurance Wednesday that the Three Tenors’ scheduled March 16 concert in Houston--named “The Grand Finale”--singers Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and Jose Carrerras said Thursday that that was not true. In fact, Domingo said the group planned to perform in Paris in 1998 in conjunction with the World Cup. . . . David Brinkley’s final stint Sunday as moderator of ABC’s “This Week With David Brinkley,” which included the newsman’s apology to President Clinton for his election night barbs, drew an estimated 5.5 million viewers and a 13% share of the available audience, marking the program’s highest ratings since February. . . . Actor Robert Urich was at UCLA Medical Center on Thursday after a surgery to battle synovial sarcoma, the rare soft-tissue cancer he was diagnosed with in August. Urich was expected to remain hospitalized for a few days, and his publicist said “a full recovery is expected in the near future.” . . . Out of respect for the memory of Chicago Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, who died Thursday of cancer, Fox TV has replaced tonight’s scheduled “Millennium,” about the ritualistic killings of religious figures, with a different episode.