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

PEOPLE

A Nation in Pain: Actress Sharon Stone, distressed by last month’s Columbine High School massacre in Colorado, has given her guns to police and asked that the weapons be destroyed. The actress, who played a gunslinger in the 1995 movie “The Quick and the Dead,” called officers to her Beverly Hills home May 14 to pick up her shotgun and three handguns. She was particularly “moved by the incident at Columbine High School,” said Officer Mike Partain, a police spokesman. “Our world has changed and our children are in danger,” Stone said in a statement this week. “I choose to surrender my right to bear arms in exchange for the peace of mind of doing the right thing.” Stone, who said she had kept the weapons for protection, urged others to surrender their guns, too, and relinquish their “fear and anger. We as a nation are in pain.”

TELEVISION

Julia Returns: Actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus--best known for her Emmy-winning role as Elaine on “Seinfeld”--joins Drew Carey as she returns to television in the first original live-action musical written for ABC’s “The Wonderful World of Disney.” She’ll star as the Blue Fairy in “Geppetto” while Carey (“The Drew Carey Show”) plays the famous Italian toy maker and father to Pinocchio, the wooden puppet who wants to be a real boy. “Geppetto,” which begins production June 7, tells the classic Pinocchio story from Geppetto’s point of view. Tom Moore directs from a script by David I. Stern, with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz (“Pocahontas,” “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”). Mike Karz and Jim Pentecost are executive producers.

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Pax’s New Pieces: Two one-hour drama series, an hourlong dramatic anthology and a variety show will debut on Pax TV’s fall prime-time lineup, Jeff Sagansky, president and CEO, announced this week. The fledgling broadcast network’s season begins Aug. 23. The new dramas are “Hope Island” (Sundays at 8), set just a ferry ride away from Seattle and dealing with a newly ordained minister who envisions a new life for himself there, and “Twice in a Lifetime” (Wednesday at 8), exploring the idea that there is a pivotal notion or decision or act in everyone’s life that gives them a second chance. “Twice” marks the prime-time return of Emmy-winning producer Barney Rosenzweig, noted for “Cagney & Lacey,” “Christy” and “The Trials of Rosie O’Neill.” The anthology series, based on best-selling inspirational books, is “Chicken Soup for the Soul” (Tuesday at 8), while the variety show is “The Star Machine” (Monday at 8). They join two returning series--the drama series “Little Men” (Friday at 8) and the reality series “It’s a Miracle” (Thursday at 8). Sagansky said that by having original programming across the weekday landscape, Pax’s strategy is to “take the network to a higher ratings mark and establish in the viewers’ minds that Pax TV is the place to go for . . . original family entertainment.”

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White Tigers Debut Too: Forty-nine white tigers being raised by Siegfried and Roy are making their television debut in a bid to raise public consciousness of the plight of the endangered animals. The famed illusionists announced that they are joining with Exxon and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to help preserve the animals. A 30-second television commercial will feature the pair and their animals. Many of the white tigers are used in their stage show at the Mirage hotel-casino in Las Vegas.

MOVIES

Silents’ Auction: The largest known private collection of silent movies--a group of 1,500 16mm and 35mm films from the collection of slain Los Angeles theater owner Lawrence Austin--will be auctioned by Butterfield & Butterfield Sunday and Monday. Included in the sale--which the auction house said could raise as much as $200,000 for Austin’s estate--will be such classic films as Cecil B. DeMille’s “The King of Kings,” Mary Pickford’s “Madame Butterfly” and Lon Chaney’s “Phantom of the Opera.” Two men have been sentenced to life in prison for Austin’s 1997 murder.

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Silents’ Preservation: The National Film Preservation Foundation has received a $1-million federal grant to preserve rare silent films at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, George Eastman House in Rochester, N.Y., and the UCLA Film and Television Archive, it was announced this week at the White House by Hillary Rodham Clinton. Through the project “Saving the Silents”--part of the overall “Save America’s Treasures” program, including historic sites--archivists will produce new preservation masters and exhibition prints of 67 shorts, serials and feature films from the first four decades of American cinema. Included are works by D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. DeMille, Erich von Stroheim and Douglas Fairbanks. Many of them have not been seen in complete form for more than 70 years. “Time is running out to save the treasures created by America’s first filmmakers,” said Roger L. Mayer, board chairman of the national film foundation and Turner Entertainment Co. president.

POP/ROCK

Reprieve: Denver authorities have decided not to file charges against rapper DMX in connection with a post-concert stabbing at a Denver restaurant. Police had ordered DMX, also known as Earl Simmons, to appear in Denver for an interview after witnesses placed him in a group that attacked and stabbed a man on April 28 after a concert at the Denver Coliseum. After Simmons returned this week for the interview and witnesses were talked to again, the district attorney’s office decided not to file charges, spokeswoman Sandy Romero said. “As we expected, DMX was vindicated,” said Simmons spokesman Ian Niles.

QUICK TAKES

“Talk Soup” host John Henson will be leaving the Emmy-winning E! series to pursue new production opportunities with ABC, it was announced Friday. A departure date and replacement are still pending. . . . The Artist (formerly known as Prince) will perform May 29 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena at the MGM casino and resort in Las Vegas. Tickets for the performance are $50-$125 and available through Ticketmaster. . . . Syndicated talk-show host G. Gordon Liddy loses an hour on KRLA-AM (1110) to local host Ira Fistell, beginning Monday. Liddy will air weeknights 7-10 p.m., followed by Fistell until 2 a.m. . . . The Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters group on Friday honored actor Stacy Keach during ceremonies in Studio City. . . . Roger Ebert will host closing night ceremonies of the 52nd annual Cannes International Film Festival Sunday at 10:30 a.m. on the Independent Film Channel, with an encore at 5 p.m. The ceremonies feature the presentation of the festival’s awards. . . . KCET-TV’s “Life & Times Tonight” host Hugh Hewitt leads a special one-hour round-table, “Are Parents Doing Their Job?,” Monday at 7 p.m.