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

DANCE

Legacy Left Intact: Rudolf Nureyev was of sound mind when he left $7 million to a Chicago-based dance foundation bearing his name, a New York judge ruled, rejecting efforts by the dancer’s relatives to get the money. “Rudolf Nureyev was . . . not a person who could be manipulated or unduly influenced, and this remained true even near the end,” the judge ruled Thursday. Nureyev’s family had alleged that a Chicago lawyer persuaded a sick and confused Nureyev in 1992 to use his U.S. assets to establish the Rudolf Nureyev Dance Foundation, which has since made grants to groups including the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the School of American Ballet, the Paul Taylor Dance Company, the Paris Opera Ballet and the Martha Graham Center for Dance. Nureyev’s close friends, including Paris Opera Ballet star Charles Jude, said Nureyev thought his name would be immortalized if he gave his money to dance. Nureyev died of complications of AIDS in 1993 at age 54. The total value of his estate was $21 million.

MOVIES

‘Missing’ Footage Returned: When Federico Fellini’s 41-year-old “Nights of Cabiria” resurfaces in theaters next month, it will contain seven minutes of footage not seen since the movie’s earliest screenings--footage that Fellini himself wanted kept in the film. “The sequence was just too long and I thought it didn’t fit in the film,” said producer Dino De Laurentis, one of the few surviving members of the “Cabiria” team. “But Fellini loved it and I was unable to convince him to drop it. So, at 5 a.m. one morning . . . I went into the studio and just took the negative.” The picture--which opens Wednesday at the Royal in West L.A.--went on to commercial success and picked up the 1957 Academy Award for best foreign language film. De Laurentis now says that Fellini (who died in 1993) knew who had taken the missing film, which he says consists mainly of one character’s philosophical musings. “About 10 years later, he phoned me and said he was showing ‘Cabiria’ to some students,” De Laurentis said, “[and he asked to] have the seven minutes to put back in. I laughed, and gave it to him. . . . It was like a family thing, we both knew what had happened but said nothing about it until later.”

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The People’s Choices: So we all have our own opinions on the American Film Institute’s recent list of the 100 greatest American movies, picked by 1,500 film industry types. But what does the general public think? According to a new Gallup poll commissioned by USA Today and CNN, the just re-released “Gone With the Wind,” which ranked No. 4 on the AFI’s list, was the overwhelming favorite in a poll of 1,000 American adults, followed by “The Wizard of Oz” (ranked No. 6 by the AFI) and “Schindler’s List” (9th on the AFI list). Three films tied for fourth place in the Gallup poll, “The Godfather” (the AFI’s No. 3 film), “Star Wars” (the AFI’s No. 15) and “It’s a Wonderful Life” (the AFI’s No. 11). The top-ranked AFI film, “Citizen Kane,” was ninth on the Gallup poll.

TV & VIDEO

Kennedy Assassination Coming to Video: MPI Home Video plans to release actual film footage of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, shot by Dallas dressmaker Abraham Zapruder, to video stores in August. The 45-minute tape--offered for $20 by MPI in conjunction with Zapruder’s heirs--features footage that had been stored since the 1970s because it was considered key evidence in the assassination investigation. The Zapruder family had maintained rights to the film throughout the years, but last year, a government board declared that it actually belongs to the people of the United States. The Zapruders have since been sparring with the government over how much the film is worth, with the Washington Post reporting that the Justice Department has offered $750,000 and the family is seeking $18.5 million.

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Wowie Howie: Howie Mandel’s new daytime talk show debuted this week to reasonably good ratings. Mandel’s syndicated show, which airs locally on KCBS-TV Channel 2 at 4 p.m., attracted about 8% of the available audience in 40 major cities monitored by Nielsen Media Research. That represents a 14% improvement over what those same stations averaged during May. In Los Angeles, Mandel averaged about 100,000 households and increased 54% over its lead-in, “Inside Edition.” “Jackie Collins’ Hollywood,” which airs on KCBS at 3 p.m., did not fare as well in its debut week, attracting an average of 55,000 households.

QUICK TAKES

Sinead O’Connor has been added to today’s Lilith Fair lineup at the Rose Bowl. . . . Fifteen-year-old country singer LeAnn Rimes spent about an hour in a Colorado emergency room Thursday after complaining of “weakness” after a Wednesday night outdoor concert in the summer heat. She missed her Thursday night concert in Grand Junction. Those traveling with Rimes were unavailable for further comment on her condition. . . . New Line Home Video will spend $20 million in its biggest video launch ever for “Lost in Space,” scheduled to hit stores on Oct. 6. . . . Mel Gibson will head the voice cast for Oscar-winning animator Nick Parks’ (“A Close Shave”) first full-length feature, “Chicken Run.” Gibson will play Rocky, an “all-American rooster.” . . . CBS News correspondent Rita Braver, known for her work on the White House beat, is joining the network’s “Sunday Morning” broadcast, starting this weekend. . . . The Oscars will return to the Music Center’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in 1999, with the awards--set for March 21--moving to a Sunday for the first time next year after being a Monday night institution for decades.