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

TELEVISION

Friends in HBO Places: HBO’s concert event, “Garth Live From Central Park,” which aired Aug. 7, attracted the largest crowd in Central Park history and also scored as the highest-rated original program on the cable network this year, as well as the most-watched special on cable TV in 1997. The Garth Brooks extravaganza topped all four broadcast networks in HBO homes, receiving a 15.2 rating and 25 share, while ABC received a 4.2 (7 share), CBS a 5.1 (8 share), NBC a 9 (15 share) and Fox a 5.1 (8 share).

The concert, which attracted a crowd of 250,000--nearly double the 125,000 who witnessed Paul Simon’s free concert in the park in 1991--will repeat Sept. 13. HBO, at the request of Brooks, is authorizing cable and satellite affiliates to make the program available for viewing by basic service subscribers, so even homes without HBO will be able to watch if the affiliates allow.

The Perfect Wife?: She played an outspoken blue-collar housewife on her long-running ABC comedy series, “Roseanne.” Can she be the perfect alien wife on the one-hour season premiere of “3rd Rock From the Sun”? Roseanne is guest-starring as the niece of the Big Giant Head and the intended bride of Dick (John Lithgow) on the Sept. 24 episode. “3rd Rock” will be competing against the season premieres of ABC’s popular “The Drew Carey Show” and “Ellen” in the 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. slot.

MOVIES

Switching Formats: Beginning Aug. 22, the Port Theatre in Corona Del Mar will no longer be home to first-run foreign and independent films. The Landmark-operated theater will switch to a “calendar programming” format--film festivals, new offbeat movies, classic reissues and old films--akin to the Landmark’s Nuart Theatre in Santa Monica. The “Dames and Dicks” film noir series, which recently played the Nuart, kicks off the new programming at the Port. “A Centennial Salute to Frank Capra,” currently at the Nuart, will travel to the Port in October.

Burns Is Back: Through the miracle of computers and the vocal talents of Frank Gorshin, George Burns, who died last year at the age of 100, is starring in a new movie, “Everything’s George,” set to start production on Aug. 24. In the comedy, written and directed by Scott Edmund Lane, Burns comes back to earth as an angel who must earn his wings. Kevin Haney’s makeup effects will be digitally scanned and manipulated by computer.

DANCE

New Home: The Lula Washington Contemporary Dance Foundation has chosen architects Michael Rotondi and Clark Stevens of Roto Architects to design the company’s new $1-million dance studio in South-Central Los Angeles. The new studio will be rebuilt at 5175 W. Adams Blvd., the same site that had housed the company’s original studio, which was destroyed in the 1994 earthquake. Although Rotondi usually works on much-larger-scale projects, he said he sees the studio as the beginning of a revitalization project for the South-Central area. Groundbreaking is set for December, with construction funds provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Great Western Bank and the Parsons, Weingart and Ahmanson foundations.

ARTS

No ‘Hopps Hopps Hopps’: Dashing hopes that a sculpture by Edward Kienholz based on a seminal chapter in Los Angeles’ art history would stay in L.A., the Lannan Foundation has quietly given “Walter Hopps Hopps Hopps” to the Menil Collection in Houston, where Hopps is founding director and curator. Kienholz made the witty, larger-than-life-size likeness of Hopps in 1959, two years after the artist and curator co-founded the legendary Ferus Gallery on La Cienega Boulevard. Lannan purchased the sculpture for $176,000--more than twice its estimated value--in 1989 at an auction of artwork from the estate of Los Angeles-based real estate developer Edwin Janss Jr. At the time the foundation was based in Los Angeles, but during the past three years it has shifted its philanthropic emphasis from contemporary art to Native American communities, dispersed most of its collection and moved to Santa Fe. Menil Collection President Dominique de Menil and director Paul Winkler arranged the gift in April, unbeknownst to Hopps. “I feel a little funny that it left California, but I’m touched that they wanted it to be here,” he said.

QUICK TAKES

KCBS-FM (Arrow 93) will broadcast the MTV “Fleetwood Mac Reunion Special” simulcast tonight at 10 p.m. Arrow will also be hosting a Fleetwood Mac Listening party at the House of Blues on Aug. 19. . . . As a cost-cutting move, KCBS-TV Channel 2 has not renewed air-traffic reporter Bob Tur’s contract, instead hiring Metro Traffic to provide such reports, a spokeswoman confirmed. Tur, whose career included providing footage of motorist Reginald Denny being beaten in 1992, will leave the station at the end of September. . . . ABC will tape a “A Tribute to Aaron Spelling” on Aug. 23, to air as a special on the network during the coming TV season. The producer will be honored by stars from his many series, including “Charlie’s Angels,” “Melrose Place” and the entire cast of “The Love Boat.” . . . Guitarist Marc Ford has left the rock group the Black Crowes, citing “mutual differences.” His replacement has not yet been named.