ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT REPORTS FROM THE TIMES, NEWS SERVICES AND THE NATION’S PRESS.

STAGE

Broadway Attendance Record: Helped, no doubt, by such movie star turns as Kevin Spacey in “The Iceman Cometh” and Nicole Kidman in “The Blue Room,” the 1998-99 Broadway theater season, which ends today, has set a record for attendance in New York. In an overview of the season, the League of American Theaters and Producers said that 11.7 million people attended shows in the Big Apple, while another 14.8 million attended touring productions of Broadway shows presented nationwide.

MOVIES

The Catch Phrase That Almost Wasn’t: Sotheby’s will auction the final shooting script for “Gone With the Wind” in New York on June 12. Included in the 1939 script are three alternatives to Rhett Butler’s then-controversial line, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn,” uttered by Clark Gable in his final scene with Vivien Leigh. The two alternatives are: “Frankly my dear, I just don’t care” and “I wish I could care what you do or where you go--but frankly my dear, I just don’t care.” Producer David O. Selznick ultimately paid censors $5,000 to allow Gable to use the enduring phrase; the cost in today’s money would be about $60,000--the same amount that Sotheby’s expects to reap from the script’s sale.

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British Fare: “Changing the Guard: The Festival of New British Cinema” makes its West Coast premiere June 11 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It will continue on the weekends of June 18-19 and 25-26. Part of a nationwide tour, the festival includes 11 features and one program of short films. After Los Angeles, the series will make stops in Cleveland, Chicago, Portland, Seattle, Houston, Ithaca, Atlanta and Columbus.

TELEVISION

NBC’s Summer Plans: “You Asked for It,” a new hourlong reality series, will debut on NBC on Aug. 1, airing Sundays at 8 p.m. Among other summer schedule changes, the network will add a two-hour movie block on Saturdays at 9 p.m., starting June 19, and “Veronica’s Closet” will shift to Mondays, starting July 19. In addition, both “Will & Grace” and “Law & Order” will air twice a week during the summer, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Mondays and Wednesdays, respectively. . . . Meanwhile, the network this Sunday will already rebroadcast two of its one-hour season finales: The “3rd Rock From the Sun” season ender will air at 9 p.m., followed by the “Mad About You” swan song at 10 p.m.

QUICK TAKES

Actor Johnny Depp, 35, is a father. His baby, Lily-Rose Melody Depp, was born in Paris on Thursday night, his publicist said. The mother is French singer-actress Vanessa Paradis. . . . Olympic gold medalist figure skater Tara Lipinski begins a three-month stint Wednesday on CBS’ “The Young and the Restless,” playing a feisty pre-med student. . . . Randy Newman will perform a 40-minute set of songs from his new album on Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Tower Records on Sunset. The album, “Bad Love,” hits stores today. . . . Susan Macall Allen, head of special collections at UCLA’s Young Research Library, has been appointed to the new position of chief librarian at the Getty Research Institute’s 800,000-volume library, effective June 28. . . . ABC news correspondent Forrest Sawyer, who regularly sat in for Ted Koppel on “Nightline” and Peter Jennings on “ABC World News Tonight,” is leaving the network after failing to negotiate a new contract. . . . In what was said to be a case of heat exhaustion, musician Lenny Kravitz collapsed backstage after leaving a New Jersey concert four songs into his set Sunday night. . . . Friends of Time magazine art critic Robert Hughes, 60, said late Sunday that he should make a full recovery after being seriously injured in a weekend car crash in outback Australia. Hughes, who suffered multiple fractures, was in serious but stable condition following 12 hours of surgery Sunday.