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

TELEVISION

‘Lolita’ Calls Showtime Home: Adrian Lyne’s controversial remake of Vladimir Nabokov’s 1954 novel “Lolita” has finally found a U.S. distributor--cable’s Showtime television network. The film, starring Jeremy Irons as pedophile Humbert Humbert and actress Dominique Swain as the teenage object of his affection, will premiere on Showtime and sister network the Sundance Channel in August, with Showtime planning a 9 p.m. or later starting time. Although the film earned an R rating from the Motion Picture Assn. of America more than a year ago, theatrical distributors still shied away, apparently finding the subject matter too risky. “We at Showtime are happy to provide a continuing refuge for nontraditional material,” said Showtime’s president of programming, Jerry Offsay, noting the network’s previous airing of the incest-themed “Bastard Out of Carolina” and its upcoming debut of “Armistead Maupin’s More Tales of the City.” “We expect there to be a great deal of controversy, but . . . we are honored to be providing a measure of artistic freedom to an important internationally successful filmmaker.” Director Lyne, an Oscar nominee in 1987 for “Fatal Attraction,” on Tuesday called Showtime’s involvement “a courageous decision” and said he was “thrilled that the film will now be seen by even more people” since Showtime is in negotiations for a theatrical release after the initial cable airings. “It’s not a racy movie, really,” said Lyne, reached at his home in the South of France. “It comes out of my great love for the novel. I’m just happy that now people will see it and be able to discuss a movie rather than discussing a premise.” Showtime is billing the $58-million movie--which critics have said remains closer to the original novel than Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 version--as “the most expensive film ever to premiere on premium television.”

Streisand Nixes Debate: Barbra Streisand responded Tuesday to Charlton Heston’s remarks calling her the “Hanoi Jane of the Second Amendment” for producing the TV movie “The Long Island Incident.” Streisand, referring to Heston’s challenge to debate her publicly on gun control, said: “I don’t think Mr. Heston’s challenge . . . would serve the public interest, however much it might serve the public curiosity and however much it might serve Mr. Heston’s desire to heighten awareness of his views or to get elected president of the [National Rifle Assn.]. I will not allow him to use me for that purpose.” Streisand defended her movie, about a woman who won a seat in Congress after a gunman killed her husband and five other people on a New York commuter train in 1993. She added one point of her own for debate, saying: “Why do we have childproof medicine bottles, but we don’t have childproof guns?”

PEOPLE

Under Treatment for Cancer: Singer Carly Simon, 52, is undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer. Simon said she decided to go public with her illness to beat a planned story in an upcoming issue of the National Enquirer that she felt would exaggerate her condition. Simon said she had a malignant tumor removed last October and her prognosis is good. . . . Former “A-Team” star Mr. T also went public this week with news that he too is battling cancer--a rare form of lymphoma for which he has undergone chemotherapy and radiation.

STAGE

SCR Season Announced: South Coast Repertory’s plays next season will include the West Coast premieres of Donald Margulies’ “Dinner With Friends,” staged by Dan Sullivan (Oct. 23 to Nov. 22) and Jon Klein’s “Dimly Perceived Threats to the System” (Sept. 26 to Oct. 25), plus the premiere of John Glore’s “On the Jump” (April 17 to May 16, 1999). Revivals will include “Ah, Wilderness!” (Sept. 12 to Oct. 11), “Tartuffe” (Jan. 16 to Feb. 14, 1999) “Of Mice and Men” (Feb. 27 to April 4) and David Hare’s “Skylight” (dates to be determined). Meanwhile, SCR’s first Pacific Playwrights Festival, June 18-28, will include Anthony Clarvoe’s “Walking Off the Roof” and Cusi Cram’s “Landlocked,” each to be performed with minimal design elements. Five more plays will receive readings.

QUICK TAKES

The Connecticut newspaper the Hartford Courant has refused to run ads for Janet Jackson’s upcoming Velvet Rope concert tour, saying that the singer’s ample cleavage and inner hip tattoo shown in the ad is not “appropriate” for “homes of readers with young children.” . . . Sonny and Cher’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame will now be dedicated on May 15. The date was changed to accommodate Bono’s widow, newly elected Rep. Mary Bono. . . . Conductor Jahja Ling will replace the indisposed Roger Norrington at L.A. Philharmonic concerts Thursday, Friday and Sunday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The program will remain as scheduled. At the L.A. Philharmonic / High School Honors Orchestra concert Saturday night, Grant Gershon will conduct. . . . Architect Daniel Libeskind, whose Jewish Museum in Berlin will open in June, has been selected as architect for the planned Jewish Museum San Francisco in the city’s Yerba Buena district. The museum will be a center for Jewish life and culture, including both visual and performing arts. Libeskind is on leave from his post on the faculty at UCLA.