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

TELEVISION

Sending Up the News: NBC has ordered a backup series for next season titled “Lateline,” offering a comedic behind-the-scenes look at a fictitious TV news program. The series cast includes Robert Foxworth, Miguel Ferrer and “Saturday Night Live’s” Al Franken, who is also producing the show with John Markus, an alumnus of HBO’s similar critics’ favorite, “The Larry Sanders Show.” As in that series, various public figures will appear playing themselves, with Ralph Nader and G. Gordon Liddy among those in the first episode.

‘New’ Jim Henson Fare: HBO this fall will air new-to-the-U.S. fare by the late Muppet master Jim Henson, including a “lost” episode of “Jim Henson’s The Storyteller” and four episodes of the British series “Jim Henson’s Greek Myths.” In addition, eight other previously seen episodes of “The Storyteller” will air on HBO in the fall, including the 1987 series pilot, which won an Emmy for outstanding children’s program. All of the series’ stories--which combine puppetry with live action--were written by Academy Award winner Anthony Minghella (“The English Patient”) with music by another of this year’s Oscar winners, Rachel Portman (“Emma”).

‘GMA’ Bound?: KABC-TV Channel 7 anchor Lisa McRee is the likely candidate to replace departing anchor Joan Lunden on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” sources say. A decision is expected as early as next week. McRee is said to be well liked at ABC, having anchored the network’s overnight show, “World News Now,” in 1992. Meanwhile, the network announced Thursday that Elizabeth Vargas, who had been Lunden’s expected successor, is leaving “GMA” to work on ABC’s prime-time newsmagazines.

MOVIES

Mrs. Astaire Fights On: Fred Astaire’s widow says she will fight a recent court ruling granting producers more leverage in using celebrities’ film clips posthumously. Robyn Astaire says she will appeal a decision issued last week by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that asserted the right of a video company to use footage without Astaire’s approval. The decision capped Astaire’s nine-year battle with Best Film & Video Corp. over its unauthorized use of clips from Fred Astaire’s films “Second Chorus” and “Royal Wedding” on a 1989 instructional dance video. A lower court had favored Astaire’s rights over her husband’s image, but the closely watched appeals court ruling noted an exemption in the law that allows a dead celebrity’s image to be used in books, plays, musical compositions, magazines, newspapers, radio, television and films. The ruling extended that exemption to videos while leaving in place a requirement for permission when footage is used to promote other commercial products.

POP-ROCK

An Inauspicious Start: A crowd of about 14,000 turned out for opening day of Lollapalooza ’97 on Wednesday at the 19,000-capacity Coral Sky Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach, Fla. Listening to sets by Tool, Korn, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Tricky, James and Orbital, among others, the audience “got mostly posturing in place of real music-making,” wrote Charles Passy in a review for the Palm Beach Post. Rapper Snoop, wrote Passy, “simply revved up the crowd with a series of expletives--and a poor mix made it difficult to hear even those.” Leaving the best impression on the reviewer was the English rock band James, which “wed techno tricks with a strong concept of song craftsmanship.” Tickets for Lollapalooza’s local outing on Aug. 8 at Glen Helen Blockbuster Pavilion (with Prodigy as the headliner) go on sale Saturday.

ART

Carrying On: Tomas Benitez has been named acting director of East Los Angeles’ Self-Help Graphics in the wake of the death of the organization’s founder, Sister Karen Boccalero, who suffered a fatal heart attack Tuesday at age 64. “We’re not going to fold our tent by any means,” said Benitez, the Franciscan nun’s second-in-command for some years. “We’re going to regroup and forge ahead.” Meanwhile, a Self-Help fund-raiser that had been scheduled for Sunday has been postponed to July 27. However, a print exhibition will open as scheduled on Sunday, when the gallery will be open from 1 to 5 p.m. in a celebration of Boccalero’s life.

DANCE

New Bolshoi Upheaval: Vyacheslav Gordeyev, the ballet chief of the Bolshoi Theater who once said he could not stand “laziness, illness and pregnancy” in his dancers, is being forced out. Director Vladimir Vasilyev cited artistic disagreements and personality clashes in refusing to renew Gordeyev’s contract. The Moscow Times reported that Vasilyev is also blaming Gordeyev for failing to restore the beleaguered company’s former glory, as Vasilyev had vowed to do.

QUICK TAKES

Today is the deadline for the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ 8,500 members to return nomination ballots for the 49th annual Primetime Emmy Awards, airing Sept. 14 on CBS. Nominations will be announced on July 24. . . . Speaking of the Emmys, an L.A. Superior Court judge on Thursday forbade a mass mailing service from selling an allegedly stolen list of the academy’s members’ names. The ban will be in effect while a court decides a lawsuit the academy filed in May against Premiere Mailing Service, claiming that a former academy employee had stolen the list, then given it to Premiere in exchange for a cut of profits from the list’s sale. . . . CBS News will broadcast extra editions of its newsmagazine “48 Hours” on four coming Wednesdays at 10 p.m.: July 30, Aug. 13 and 27 and Sept. 3. The show will also be seen in its regularly scheduled Thursday night slot.