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

ENTERTAINMENT

Dr. Laura Speaks: With biting tones and voice breaking, Laura Schlessinger opened her syndicated radio show Wednesday by saying she was “more than enraged right now” that the young daughter of a former colleague, who is a lesbian, was hurt because of “the very visible controversy that surrounds me these days.” On Tuesday, about 200 gays and lesbians picketed Hollywood’s Paramount Pictures to protest the studio’s plans for a daytime TV show hosted by Schlessinger. Schlessinger, heard locally on KFI-AM (640), told of “a very distressing” phone call she received from the unnamed mother, whose child was taunted at school. While offering no apology, Schlessinger maintained that she is being “misrepresented” through “all the garbage . . . in the media.” “Dr. Laura . . . never said gays and lesbians couldn’t be wonderful parents,” she said, adding that despite her “religiously founded” beliefs, “[you] never hurt a person because of some social or political point of view . . . about their parents’ . . . gender orientation.” She also urged parents to tell their kids that “you do not . . . hurt [others].”

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Kuralt’s Mistress Prevails: Charles Kuralt’s longtime mistress won ownership of the late CBS correspondent’s Montana fishing retreat Wednesday after a Helena judge agreed with Patricia Shannon’s claim that a letter Kuralt wrote to her shortly before he died in 1997 was a valid will giving her the 90-acre property, valued at $600,000. The judge rejected Kuralt’s children’s claim that the letter merely expressed Kuralt’s intention to draft a new will. Kuralt and Shannon had a secret relationship for 29 years. Kuralt’s widow, Suzanne, died in October 1999; she reportedly didn’t know about Shannon until Kuralt’s funeral.

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Plaintiffs Don’t Cry: Lana Tisdel, the real-life girlfriend of murder victim Teena Brandon, has settled her lawsuit against Fox Searchlight Pictures over her portrayal in the movie “Boys Don’t Cry.” Tisdel, portrayed in the film by Oscar nominee Chloe Sevigny, had claimed that the movie--about the 1993 murder of Brandon, who posed as a man named Brandon Teena--depicted her as a constant user of drugs and alcohol and referred to her as “lazy white trash” and a “skanky snake.” Settlement terms were not disclosed, but Fox issued a statement from Tisdel saying “how realistic I found [Oscar nominee] Hilary Swank’s portrayal of Brandon.”

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Whitney Support: The Whitney Museum of American Art has created what it says is the world’s largest cash award for an individual visual artist. The $100,000 Bucksbaum Award, named after Whitney trustee Melva Bucksbaum and recognizing a “living American artist whose work demonstrates a singular combination of talent and imagination,” will be given every two years to an artist from the museum’s signature “Whitney Biennial,” starting with the 2000 exhibition in April.

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Oscar Notes: Best original screenplay nominee Alan Ball will sign copies of “American Beauty: The Shooting Script” tonight from 7 to 8 at the Virgin Megastore on Sunset Boulevard. . . . Today at 5 p.m. is the final deadline for Oscar ballots to be received by accounting house PricewaterhouseCoopers. . . . Mr. Blackwell will comment on all the Academy Awards fashions, live, throughout Sunday’s festivities, on https://www.estar.com.