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

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Berle Vows to Beat Colon Cancer: Milton Berle has a small cancerous tumor in his colon, but doctors have decided against surgery. The comedian, who turns 93 in July, is “actually doing very well. He’s doing fine,” Berle’s wife, Lorna, said Wednesday. “It’s a small tumor in his colon. He isn’t scheduled for any surgery, but that could always change. He is in no pain.” She added that Berle has vowed to win his cancer battle and is looking forward to reaching at least 100. She said her husband now uses a wheelchair because his legs have weakened but noted that he “gets a kick out of sailing into restaurants in it.”

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Marx Family Settlement: The estates of Harpo and Chico Marx have agreed to drop a lawsuit against the company bearing brother Groucho’s name. The two estates had claimed that they were cheated when Groucho Marx Productions sold a French company rights to make a TV cartoon about the comedians, without paying the other two Marx estates. The attorney for the estates, who denied to comment on the settlement, said his clients will proceed with a suit against the French company, Global Communications, for producing the animated episodes without permission from Harpo’s and Chico’s heirs. Last week, a judge ruled that the plaintiffs could not sue for unauthorized commercial use of Harpo’s and Chico’s personas because they had not properly registered their claim to those personas. However, the settlement was reached before that ruling, the estates’ attorney said. The attorney for Groucho Marx Productions said his clients feel vindicated by the ruling and are happy with the settlement.

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NEA Grants: In its second major funding round for fiscal year 2001, the National Endowment for the Arts will announce today 832 grants totaling $53,915,900 to nonprofit national, regional, state and local organizations nationwide, including a total of $3,026,800 to California arts organizations. This round of grants is part of the federal arts agency’s $104.8-million budget appropriation for fiscal 2001.

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Mating Call: Director John Landis and his wife, costume designer Deborah Nadoolman, on Wednesday gave the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences a 6 1/2-foot tall poster from the 1933 “King Kong” movie--one of only four copies of the poster believed to exist. The gift gives the academy what is believed to be the only matched set of the two different posters from the original “Kong” film. The other poster, also apparently one of the four in existence, was donated by the Cecil B. DeMille Foundation in 1999. The pair of apes will go on view in the academy’s Margaret Herrick Library.

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Quick Takes: Pax TV will offer a second weekly broadcast of NBC’s hit Monday night quiz show “Weakest Link.” The repeats will air on Pax on Friday nights at 8, starting June 1. . . . Animated-short Oscar winner Michael Dudok de Wit, who won the high-definition TV set for giving the awards show’s shortest acceptance speech (18 seconds), has donated that prize to Hollygrove, a Los Angeles center that’s home to 68 disturbed and mistreated youths. . . . “Secret World of the Forbidden City: Splendors From China’s Imperial Palace” returns to the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art for an encore showing June 8, 2002, to Jan. 5, 2003. The exhibition drew more than 100,000 visitors over seven months in Santa Ana last year and has made stops at the Oakland Museum of California and the Houston Museum of Natural Science.