MORNING REPORT - News from July 29, 2000

TELEVISION

Diversity Scholarship: Hoping to increase diversity among Hollywood’s future generations, the USC School of Cinema-Television, Warner Bros. and NBC have created the Warner Bros. Fellowship and the NBC Diversity Scholarship Fund. The Warner Bros. Fellowship will be awarded to a minimum of three undergraduate students selected by USC and the studio. In addition to providing students with financial assistance for their entire undergraduate studies, Warner Bros. Pictures, Warner Bros. Television and the WB Television Network will mentor students through paid internship programs and guarantee them jobs at the studio upon graduation. “As established industry leaders, we have a responsibility to keep USC’s momentum going,” said NBC West Coast President and USC alumnus Scott Sassa. “Their diversity initiative will ultimately change the face of entertainment, making it so that characteristics such as race, gender and financial resources are overshadowed by the truly important qualities of creativity, leadership and integrity.”

Casting Calls: Bunim/Murray Productions, producers of MTV’s “The Real World” and “Road Rules,” begins casting a new Fox show Sunday from noon to 6 p.m at the Saddle Ranch Chop House, 8731 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. The show will document romantic interactions among 16 singles between the ages of 22 and 35 during a 10-day cruise at sea. The lucky couple who find love will share a grand prize. For more information, log on to https://www.bunim-murray.com. . . . Meanwhile, in England, NBC is searching for an actor between the ages of 18 and 23 to play John Lennon in a TV movie, “In His Life: The John Lennon Story,” which chronicles the slain Beatle’s formative years. Open casting calls will be held in London and Liverpool next month. The movie is to air on the peacock network in December.

PEOPLE

Hawn Protests Use of Her Name: Goldie Hawn doesn’t see any humor in a timber sale that resembles her name. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management named a 100-acre timber sale the “Goldie Fawn” sale, prompting the actress to fire off an angry letter. “I must insist that you desist from using my name [in] association with such a destructive proposal,” Hawn wrote in a letter dated July 11. The project, which calls for logging Douglas firs near the headwaters of two creeks, has drawn criticism from officials who say it threatens drinking water and salmon spawning habitat. Hawn’s secretary, Deloris Horn, confirmed the letter’s contents and stressed that Hawn is not an anti-logging spokeswoman. “But she doesn’t want to see beautiful timber land destroyed in her name,” Horn said. Bob Hershey, natural resource staff administrator at the BLM’s Salem office, could not say whether the person who named the sale was thinking of Goldie Hawn. “If it offends her, we can change the name,” he said. “It’s not a big deal.”

MOVIES

Conspiracy Theory: Oliver Stone is hoping to bring another presidential conspiracy to the big screen. According to a report in Friday’s New York Daily News, the director of “JFK” and “Nixon” is writing a movie about an alleged plot in 1933 by rich Republicans to oust President Franklin D. Roosevelt. “The coup d’etat planned against President Roosevelt has amazingly disappeared from the history books,” Stone writes in an introduction to the recently published book, “Oliver Stone’s USA: Film, History and Controversy.” Stone is basing his script partly on William Corson and Joseph Trento’s upcoming book, “The Last President.”

POP/ROCK

Taking a Break: Hip-hop singer Usher is taking a hiatus from recording his new album to recover from exhaustion and dehydration. The 21-year-old was hospitalized recently after he passed out in a New York recording studio. “His doctors have prescribed strict bed rest for two weeks and lots of fluids,” his manager, Jonnetta Patton, said Friday in a statement. “He would like his fans to know that he is fine and hopes to be back on his feet soon.” Usher’s 1997 album, “My Way,” featured two No. 1 singles and earned him a Grammy nomination.

QUICK TAKES

Limp Bizkit’s free tour will hit Los Angeles on Aug. 12, according to the band’s frontman, Fred Durst. In a phone call to KROQ-FM (106.7) on Thursday, Durst announced the date but said the venue will be kept under wraps until closer to the show. Bizkit and Cypress Hill are performing free shows for fans on a tour underwritten by Napster. . . . The Stone Temple Pilots perform on a live Web cast from the Avalon in Boston, tonight at 5 at https://VH1.com. . . Tim Allen is confirmed to star in the sequel to “The Santa Clause,” scheduled for a November 2001 release.