MORNING REPORT - News from Dec. 16, 2000

RADIO/TELEVISION

Re-upping: As expected, radio personality Howard Stern announced Friday that he had struck a deal that would keep him on the air after his contract expires at the end of the month. The shock jock said he signed a new, five-year contract with Viacom-owned Infinity Broadcasting Corp. Stern, who earlier had used his airwaves to suggest Friday could be his last as a morning-radio fixture, also used his airwaves to announce the signing. “I was really on the fence. But in the end, I couldn’t see walking away from this,” Stern said, without disclosing specifics of the deal. Asked what he would do with the extra money, Stern wisecracked: “Do what I always do--give it to my wife.” Stern and his wife of 21 years separated in 1999. Heard locally on KLSX-FM (97.1), he begins his vacation today and is due to come to Los Angeles next month for a week’s worth of shows.

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Pointing Fingers: A female radio personality has filed sexual discrimination charges against one of the most popular voices on Spanish-language radio, “El Cucuy” (“The Bogeyman”), and his employer, Hispanic Broadcasting Corp., the country’s largest Spanish-language broadcaster. Isnarda Cervantes filed the charges in L.A. County Superior Court on Thursday against Renan Armendarez Coello. His morning talk show on KSCA-FM (101.9) leads the market in ratings. According to the lawsuit, Coello threatened to quit unless Hispanic Broadcasting withdrew its three-year contract with Cervantes to co-host a morning talk show on KTNQ-AM (1020). Cervantes, who was fired hours before the February press conference announcing her new show, said that Coello did not demand any action against her male counterpart, Raul Vale, who now hosts the program solo. Fernando Schiantarelli, Coello’s manager called the lawsuit “a nice plot . . . but it’s not true.” Hispanic Broadcasting officials did not return calls from The Times.

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Revisiting Reagan: Oliver Stone is planning a movie about the 1981 assassination attempt against President Ronald Reagan. Stone, who directed “Nixon” and “JFK,” is expected to start filming “The Day Reagan Got Shot” for the Showtime network next month. Richard Crenna is in negotiations to play Reagan, with Holland Taylor as Nancy Reagan and Richard Dreyfuss as Secretary of State Alexander Haig.

THEATER

“Flower Drum” Sayonara: The revised version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “Flower Drum Song,” which had been scheduled to open April 29 at the Ahmanson Theatre in downtown L.A., has been canceled. Center Theatre Group producing director Gordon Davidson said Friday that not enough money was raised to mount the production on time. No immediate replacement was announced.

PEOPLE

Locked Up: A 51-year-old Ohio man who harassed Oscar-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow was declared insane and sent to a high-security psychiatric hospital. A Los Angeles judge on Thursday convicted Dante Michael Soiu of stalking, for sending hundreds of letters, e-mails and packages to the 28-year-old “Shakespeare in Love” star. Paltrow testified she was “very fearful” of the man, who was arrested last May outside the home of Paltrow’s parents, actress Blythe Danner and producer-director Bruce Paltrow. Soiu was ordered to remain at the psychiatric hospital for as long as he is deemed a threat to himself or others.

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Back Together: Hip-hop bad boy Eminem and his wife have reconciled. Kim Mathers and Eminem, whose real name is Marshall Bruce Mathers III, asked a judge on Thursday to dismiss their divorce complaint. The couple, high school sweethearts who married in 1999, want what’s best for their 5-year-old daughter, lawyers said. Eminem was arrested June 4 and accused of using an unloaded gun to hit a man reportedly seen kissing his wife outside a nightclub. Prosecutors have offered to drop the assault charge if the rapper pleads guilty to a concealed weapons offense.

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Splitting Up: Former “Laverne & Shirley” star Cindy Williams has filed for divorce from her husband of more than 18 years, musician Bill Hudson, citing irreconcilable differences. Hudson, 51, was previously married to Goldie Hawn and is the father of actress Kate Hudson. Williams, 52, is seeking custody of their 14-year-old son.

QUICK TAKES

Madonna, who marries British film director Guy Ritchie next week, has bought an $8.8 million, five-story Georgian home in London’s West End. . . . Elton John, whose hit “Philadelphia Freedom” was released more than two decades ago, will christen that city’s new Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts next December, performing with Bill Cosby, Wynton Marsalis, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra, for which the new building was conceived. . . . Sisters Phylicia Rashad and Debbie Allen will star in “The Old Settler,” the first production in a national drama series from KCET-TV, “PBS Hollywood Presents,” with production beginning in January and the drama to air in the spring. . . . Lars Hansen is resigning as president of Theatre L.A., the organization of Los Angeles theaters and producers, to become executive director of cultural relations at USC.