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

ART

MOCA Gifts: The Museum of Contemporary Art’s $25-million capital campaign has been given a big boost with four gifts totaling $3.25 million. A $1-million donation from Ron Burkle, managing partner of the Yucaipa Companies, which owns Ralphs groceries, will establish the Ron Burkle Endowment for Architecture and Design Programs at MOCA. An anonymous $1-million gift will fund a programming endowment to be used at the museum director’s discretion. The Kresge Foundation has awarded a $750,000 challenge grant for capital improvements at the museum’s two buildings. Audrey Irmas, campaign co-chair and chair of MOCA’s board of trustees who helped launch the fund-raising drive in 1995 with a $3-million gift, has contributed an additional $500,000 in memory of her late husband to establish the Sydney Irmas Exhibition Endowment, which will support one major exhibition each year. The recent gifts bring MOCA’s total campaign contributions to about $22 million.

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Getting Her Head Back: Denmark’s famed Little Mermaid is about to resume her vigil over the Copenhagen harbor, four weeks after the bronze statue’s head was hacked off. The vandalized body part was reattached over the weekend and workmen began smoothing over the welding seam Monday; a protective wooden shack that had been erected around the statue following the Jan. 6 beheading will be removed later this week. The head was returned three days after the decapitation by a hooded man who dropped it off at a television station; no arrests have been made. The 1913 statue, based on a Hans Christian Andersen tale and cherished by Danes as a national symbol, draws about a million visitors a year. Its head was sawed off once before, in 1964, when a new one was cast.

TELEVISION

Baldwin’s Condition: Actor Daniel Baldwin, 37, was upgraded to stable condition Tuesday after an apparent cocaine overdose Monday in which the former star of NBC’s “Homicide: Life on the Street” reportedly trashed his room at New York’s posh Plaza Hotel. One of his actor brothers, Billy, said Daniel’s “condition continues to improve every hour,” and that he could be released from St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital as soon as today.

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Looking Ducky: Though the wonders of animation keep him young, cartoon great Donald Duck turns 60 this year. In celebration, Disney-owned ABC will air a new film short, “Donald Duck: 60th Anniversary Celebration,” on Sunday during the 7 p.m. “Wonderful World of Disney” broadcast of “Aladdin and the King of Thieves.”

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DGA Nominees: James Burrows’ pilot episode of “Dharma & Greg,” Gil Junger’s coming-out episode of “Ellen,” Gordon Hunt’s “The Birth” episode of “Mad About You,” Andy Ackerman’s “The Betrayal” edition of “Seinfeld,” and Pamela Fryman’s Halloween installment of “Frasier” were nominated by the Directors Guild of America Tuesday for outstanding directing in a comedy series. Drama series nominees were Chris Carter (“The X-Files”), Christopher Chulack (“ER”), James Frawley (“Ally McBeal”), Barbara Kopple (“Homicide: Life on the Street”) and Mark Tinker (“Brooklyn South”). Dramatic specials directing nominees were John Frankenheimer (TNT’s “George Wallace”), William Friedkin (Showtime’s “12 Angry Men”), Charles Haid (TNT’s “Buffalo Soldiers”), John Herzfeld (HBO’s “Don King: Only in America”) and Joseph Sargent (HBO’s “Miss Evers’ Boys”). Winners will be announced March 7.

CLASSICAL MUSIC

Hall of Famers: Isaac Stern, Duke Ellington, Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin, Scott Joplin and John Philip Sousa are among the first inductees chosen by the American Classical Music Hall of Fame. Announced Monday at the Juilliard School in New York, the inaugural class will be honored May 24 at Cincinnati’s Music Hall. Other inductees include Samuel Barber, Elliott Carter, Aaron Copland, Leontyne Price, Arnold Schoenberg, Roger Sessions, Robert Shaw, Igor Stravinsky, Arturo Toscanini and the U.S. Marine Band. The hall’s mission is to celebrate conductors, composers and musicians “who have contributed to American music and music in America.”

QUICK TAKES

KCAL-TV Channel 9 is adding a 3:30 p.m. newscast to its weekday lineup, which already includes noon and 2 p.m. newscasts. Station officials are establishing the program, which will begin on Monday, to get a jump on rival stations’ 4 p.m. news and to provide early rush-hour reports. . . . Ellen DeGeneres’ real-life girlfriend, actress Anne Heche, guest stars on ABC’s “Ellen” March 4, playing a friend of the title character’s love interest, Laurie (Lisa Darr). Heche previously showed up for a brief, non-speaking cameo in a December “Ellen” episode. . . . Media buyers say NBC is asking as much as $1.5 million a commercial--more than for Super Bowl spots--to advertise in the final episode of “Seinfeld” on May 14. The show regularly garners more than $500,000 for each 30-second spot. . . . Past Oscar winners Denzel Washington and Juliette Binoche are the first presenters announced for the 70th annual Academy Awards, airing March 23 on ABC. Oscar nominations will be announced next Tuesday. . . . Luciano Pavarotti, Babyface, Hanson, LeAnn Rimes, George Strait and Stevie Wonder have been added as performers for the 40th annual Grammy Awards, airing Feb. 25 on CBS. . . . Julio Iglesias Jr.--the 24-year-old son of the Spanish crooner--has signed an exclusive recording contract with Epic Records. He will sing mostly in English. His brother, Enrique Iglesias, 22, records in Spanish.