An Actor Who’s Seeing Red

Actor Richard Gere, a vocal supporter in Hollywood of the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, will be center stage this week during protests coinciding with the state visit to Washington by Chinese President Jiang Zemin. The protests, which are designed to draw public attention to China’s occupation of Tibet, come during the same week that Gere’s new movie, “Red Corner,” opens in more than 2,300 theaters nationwide. The MGM film tells the story of an American attorney’s brutal treatment in the Chinese legal system after his arrest for murder while visiting Beijing. On Wednesday, as President Clinton is rolling out the red carpet for Zemin, Gere will join other speakers at a rally across from the White House in Lafayette Park. That night, the actor will host a “stateless dinner” at the Hotel Washington, an event designed to contrast with a White House state dinner for the Chinese leader being hosted by the president and first lady. In recent years, the Dalai Lama has received strong support from a number of Hollywood celebrities, including Gere. The Nobel Prize-winning religious figure is the subject of two new movies: “Seven Years in Tibet” starring Brad Pitt, which is in current release, and “Kundun,” director Martin Scorsese’s story about the Dalai Lama’s early years, which will be released on Christmas Day.

The Last Fall Show or First of the Winter?

The last of this season’s 35 new prime-time series, “Sleepwalkers,” arrives this weekend, sandwiched between “The Pretender” and “Profiler” as part of NBC’s Saturday-night “thrillogy.” Taking inventory of the class of ’97 on the six prime-time networks thus far, four shows have already been canceled (one of them, “Rewind,” getting the hook without ever airing), three have been at least temporarily yanked from the schedule, three (NBC’s “Veronica’s Closet,” ABC’s “Dharma & Greg” and, to a lesser degree, Fox’s “Ally McBeal”) look like potential hits and pretty much everyone else is hovering near mediocrity. Why is “Sleepwalkers” premiering so late? Largely because NBC televised the World Series and wanted to use baseball as a platform to promote the show, in addition to providing more continuity by not introducing the program and then immediately preempting it. The sci-fi drama, which stars Bruce Greenwood as a neuropsychologist who can enter people’s dreams, also has the benefit of making its debut after the crush of new-season hoopla has diminished. On the down side, however, it premieres during the November ratings sweeps, creating additional pressure for the show to perform right out of the starting gate.

The Cure Causes Its Own Fever

Don’t be surprised this week if the Cure, the celebrated British gloom-rock band, seem to be popping up all over town. The group kicks off a week of appearances today at 5 p.m. with a one-hour visit to KROQ-FM (106.7) to announce ticket information for its show Tuesday at the Hollywood American Legion Hall, the first small-hall date in more than 10 years for a band that in the past has played Dodger Stadium and the Rose Bowl. Then at midnight tonight, lead singer-writer Robert Smith and company will be at the Virgin Megastore on the Sunset Strip for a two-hour autograph session as their new singles retrospective, “Galore,” goes on sale. Before Tuesday’s show, the band will go on-line for an Internet chat and on Wednesday night it will be on “The Tonight Show.” Then it’s off to New York to tape appearances on several MTV shows and play a concert Friday night that will be cybercast on the Internet and broadcast live on more than 60 radio stations nationwide, including KROQ. Why all the activity? Since the band isn’t planning to tour until it finishes a studio album next summer, the Cure and its record label figured the best way to draw attention to “Galore” was with a media blitz. “It’s a very special way to handle a very special product,” says Zsuzsanna Cohen Murphy, director of marketing for Elektra Records. “The amount of exposure we’re going to get on these events is just enormous. More people will see or hear these things than can fit into a venue, so it’s possible that we’ll get more attention during this one week than we would get for an entire tour.”

--Compiled by Times Staff Writers and Contributors