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

TV & MOVIES

Letterman Stalker Commits Suicide: Margaret Mary Ray, the woman who went to prison for repeatedly stalking talk-show host David Letterman, committed suicide in Colorado Monday by kneeling in front of an oncoming train, police said Tuesday. “This lady just walked out, knelt and leaned over the track, and the train couldn’t stop; she was killed instantly,” Delta County Sheriff Bill Blair said, adding that she left behind a phone number to notify relatives of her death. Ray, 46, spent various terms in prison, jail and mental institutions over the years for harassing Letterman and, more recently, former astronaut Story Musgrave. She was first arrested in 1988 while driving Letterman’s Porsche near New York’s Lincoln Tunnel; she identified herself as Letterman’s wife and her son as David Jr. when she was unable to pay the $3 toll.

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‘Wizard of Oz’ Back on Big Screen: The 1939 classic “The Wizard of Oz” will be re-released in a digitally restored version on 1,800 screens nationwide on Nov. 6, Warner Bros. announced Tuesday. Although the film, recently ranked No. 6 among the best movies of all time by the American Film Institute, has appeared sporadically in select theaters, Warner Bros. said the November showing will be the movie’s first organized national release in about 25 years.

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Will His Grin Steal Record Stores?: After striking out in the late-night talk arena, Magic Johnson is trying his hand at the music business. The former basketball star will launch a new vanity label, to be called Magic’s 32 Records (named for Magic’s familiar number on his L.A. Lakers jersey), with the first releases expected early next year. Although there are no artists signed as yet, plans call for the label--which is to be distributed by MCA Records--to feature “all kinds of music,” including urban, country, rock and Latin.

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Kaye Teams With Brando: Conceptual artist-turned-director Tony Kaye--who’s been garnering publicity for his ongoing battle with New Line Cinema over the studio’s decision to release an edited version of his movie “American History X” on Oct. 30--has announced that Marlon Brando has agreed to star in his next film project. Kaye said that Brando, 74, will both narrate and appear in “One Arm,” an unproduced screenplay written by Tennessee Williams about a promising prizefighter who loses his arm in an accident. Production is expected to begin next year.

ART

MOPA Expansion: The Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego will close its doors on Feb. 1 to undergo a $5.5-million renovation that will nearly quadruple the size of the 15-year-old museum, from 7,500 square feet to 28,000 square feet. In addition to expanded gallery space that will allow for rotating permanent collection exhibitions, plans call for a library/learning center, a large reception area and a 230-seat theater that will allow motion pictures--”the child of photography”--to become an “integral part” of the museum’s programming. A museum spokeswoman said that about $3 million has already been raised for the expansion, in which the Balboa Park institution will take over adjacent space currently occupied by the Hall of Champions, which moves elsewhere in the park. The museum is expected to reopen in the spring of 2000; in the meantime, MOPA will hold exhibitions at San Diego’s Museum of Contemporary Art, Downtown.

QUICK TAKES

David Bowie topped the Beatles Tuesday as the most important music star of the last 30 years in a poll of his British contemporaries. The London magazine Time Out surveyed several pop stars, musicians, critics and industry figures, including Culture Club’s Boy George and Mick Hucknall of Simply Red. . . . The Spice Girls’ former chauffeur asked a London judge Tuesday for permission to write a “tittle-tattle” book about his former employers. Paul Attridge asked the judge to overturn a gag order granted the girl group in June after Attridge speculated in a newspaper story about the reasons for Ginger Spice Geri Halliwell’s departure.