Morning Report - News from April 10, 2001

RADIO

Warren Olney’s Return: KCRW-FM (89.9) host Warren Olney is scheduled to return to the air next Monday, just two months after undergoing a Valentine’s Day sextuple heart bypass operation. Olney, 63, will resume hosting duties on both his signature 6:30 p.m. program, “Which Way, L.A.?,” and on his syndicated 1 p.m. show, “To the Point,” which also begins airing Monday in New York.

TELEVISION

‘Ab Fab’ Revival: The British comedy import “Absolutely Fabulous” is being resurrected. Original series stars Joanna Lumley and Jennifer Saunders will return for six new episodes as the hedonistic Patsy and Edina. The BBC production begins filming this month, with the episodes to debut in the U.S. in November on cable’s Comedy Central. Saunders said she and Lumley wanted to work together again on a different project, “but when I sat down to write the new characters I felt Edina and Patsy and all the other ‘Ab Fab’ characters vying for my attention.” The show ended its series run on Comedy Central in 1995, and the last “Ab Fab” special aired in 1997.

MOVIES

Durst’s Screen Take on Violence: Following in the footsteps of rock frontmen such as Mick Jagger and Michael Stipe, Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst is next turning his attention to filmmaking. Durst told MTV.com that he hopes to help explain the violence plaguing America’s schools with his upcoming debut, “Runts,” about a high school outcast. “Crazy things are happening that don’t need to be happening, and people are retaliating in the wrong way,” the Limp Bizkit frontman said. “This movie needs to happen now.” Production on the film, however, is in limbo until pending WGA and SAG strikes in Hollywood are settled. The project has been in development for more than a year.

Latter-Day Detente: Kevin Costner and the co-producers of his Cuban missile crisis movie, “Thirteen Days,” were en route to Cuba on Monday to show the film to audiences there as part of a U.S. government-sanctioned cultural exchange program. In addition to a week of public screenings, the filmmakers expect to show the movie to Cuban government officials who were involved in the actual 1962 event, known in Cuba as the Crisis of October.

LEGAL FILE

Plaintiff Needs to Know: A songwriter has sued singer Marc Anthony, Sony Music Entertainment and producer Cory Rooney over Anthony’s hit 1999 song, “I Need to Know,” which won song of the year honors at last year’s Latin Grammys. In his Manhattan federal court suit, Daniel Agren claims that he got a copyright for a song of the same name in 1989 and that Anthony’s song used his copyrighted “music, lyrics and arrangement.” Anthony’s lawyer dismissed the suit as completely frivolous, noting “Marc Anthony and Cory Rooney wrote ‘I Need to Know.’ It is their song and no one else’s.”

QUICK TAKES

Former “Nanny” star Fran Drescher is writing a book about her fight with uterine cancer. Drescher, 43, underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in January 2000. A release date has not yet been set for the Warner Books tome, which is tentatively titled “Cancer Schmancer.” . . . Paramount Domestic Television is digitally restoring and remastering the entire 275-episode “Cheers” library for HDTV. The program, which ran for 11 seasons on NBC, will begin airing on cable’s Nick at Night in the fall. . . . The National Endowment for the Humanities on Monday announced 302 grants totaling $30.9 million. Local recipients include the American Film Institute, which will receive $314,190 to catalog all U.S. feature films made from 1971 to 1980, and the L.A. County Museum of Art, which will get $41,130 toward an exhibition and catalog on “The Origins of Sacred Maya Kinship.” . . . The widow of a stand-in actor who died in Ecuador last year during the filming of the Russell Crowe-Meg Ryan film “Proof of Life” has sued Castle Rock Entertainment and Warner Bros., claiming the production company and studio were negligent in hiring a local man to drive an unsafe truck during a scene filmed along a narrow dirt road in the mountains. William Gaffney Jr., a stand-in for actor David Morse, died after being thrown from the truck when the driver lost control of the vehicle. . . . Tenor Jerry Hadley has withdrawn from San Diego Opera’s performances of Mozart’s “Idomeneo: King of Crete” due to illness and will be replaced by Scott Wyatt. The performances begin on Saturday.