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

PEOPLE

He Went Home in His Tour Bus: Country singer George Jones walked out of Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville Friday, 13 days after a near-fatal traffic accident. The 67-year-old singer, who has charted more than 140 records, including “He Stopped Loving Her Today” and “A Good Year for the Roses,” thanked doctors and nurses, then rode home in his tour bus. “At the family’s request, there was no media called, no pictures,” hospital spokesman Wayne Wood said. He called Jones’ recovery “amazing. . . . I don’t think anybody would dispute that he had very life-threatening injuries, especially the liver injury.” Jones lost control of his sport utility vehicle and crashed into a bridge while driving near his home March 6. His family said he was talking to his stepdaughter on a cellular phone at the time, although Tennessee Highway Patrol investigators are looking into whether alcohol was involved. Jones, who wasn’t wearing a seat belt, suffered a punctured lung and a lacerated liver.

‘Back to the Earth’: Violinist Yehudi Menuhin was buried Friday at the school he founded in Stoke D’Abernon, England, surrounded by music, family, friends and some of the young people whose talents he supported. Menuhin, who died March 12 at age 82 while on tour in Berlin, was laid to rest under a tree he had planted at the Yehudi Menuhin School as school musicians played works by Bach and Schubert. Rabbi David Goldberg read from Menuhin’s autobiography, in which the celebrated musician described his burial wishes: “My preference is for whatever would reunite me most quickly with the sources of life. . . . Back to the earth, under a tree, or in a river, that is what I choose.” The school plans to establish a memorial fund with the hope of building a concert hall in Menuhin’s name.

MOVIES

Refuse the Oscar?: Former blacklisted director Jules Dassin, husband of Greece’s late Socialist culture minister--actress Melina Mercouri--said Friday that Elia Kazan should refuse an Oscar for lifetime achievement. Kazan, 89, named eight former associates as Communists before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952. “If he has a shred of dignity left, he should refuse the award,” Dassin said in a letter in an Athens newspaper. Dassin, known best for “Never on Sunday,” which drew him and Mercouri Oscar nominations, said that Kazan, whose movies “Gentleman’s Agreement” and “On the Waterfront” won Academy Awards for best picture and best director, betrayed his friends and ruined their lives. “He cooperated with a notorious committee that shamed his country. There is no way one can separate the man from his films.”

TELEVISION

Diversity Update: Women and minority reporters made only slight gains in visibility on network evening news shows in 1998, and remained nearly invisible in the top anchor jobs, according to the latest survey by the Center for Media and Public Affairs. “ABC World News Tonight” continued to lead in airtime diversity on the networks despite increases by “NBC Nightly News.” The “CBS Evening News” was a distant third. “Neither women nor minorities have broken into the top ranks of the TV network news anchors,” said S. Robert Lichter, the media center’s president. “For three years running, the top five most visible anchors in 1998 were white males, as were 15 of the 20 most visible reporters on the network evening news.” Meanwhile, the proportion of stories reported by women and minorities on those programs rose slightly in 1998, continuing a trend from 1996, when diversity had reached its lowest levels in five years.

A Harry for Steven: In what may be a preview of Sunday night’s Oscars, the History Channel has awarded its first-ever Harry Award to Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan.” The award, given to the movie that has contributed the most to the public’s understanding and appreciation of history, is named for Herodotus, the Greek author of the first great narrative history, “History,” written in 425 BC about the Greco-Persian Wars.

MUSIC

Appointments: Opera director Peter Sellars, who was artistic director of the 1990 and 1993 Los Angeles festivals, has been named artistic director of the 2002 Adelaide Festival of Arts in Australia. . . . American conductor Rachael Worby, 49, has been named music-director designate of the Pasadena Pops Orchestra, effective Oct. 1. Worby will conduct two of the ensemble’s five 1999 summer events, Aug. 28 and Sept. 18. She will succeed Principal Conductor Lucas Richman, now assistant conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony. Worby has been music director of West Virginia’s Wheeling Symphony for 13 seasons.

QUICK TAKES

The music magazine Spin will be available online beginning today at https://www.spin.com . . . Also online starting today is the digitally restored 1964 film of Richard Burton’s performance of “Hamlet,” which can be accessed at https://www.aentv.com . . . The late Gene Autry had a training field named for him at the Tempe, Ariz., spring training home of the Anaheim Angels, which he owned from the time the baseball expansion franchise began play in 1961 until he sold a controlling interest to the Walt Disney Co. in 1996. . . . Actor Gene Hackman is set to become an author, with his first novel, an adventure story set at sea titled “Black Star Rising,” scheduled for publication later this year by Newmarket Press. Hackman will co-author the book with Dan Lenihan, an underwater archeologist.