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

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Downey to Finish ‘Ally’ Season: Robert Downey Jr. has signed to do an additional eight episodes--the remainder of this season--playing Calista Flockhart’s love interest on Fox’s “Ally McBeal.” He will return to the show with the Feb. 26 episode. Downey won a Golden Globe for the role last month. Meanwhile, his next court appearance on drug charges stemming from his Thanksgiving arrest in Palm Springs is scheduled for next Wednesday.

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Puffy Confirms Split: Valentine’s Day was a heartbreaker for rap mogul Sean “Puffy” Combs, who confirmed his breakup with singer-actress Jennifer Lopez. “Mr. Combs confirmed that he and his love Jennifer Lopez have in fact broken up,” his publicist said Wednesday. The breakup had been rumored for weeks as the pair has been apart while Lopez has promoted her new album and movie and Combs has been on trial in New York on weapons and bribery charges stemming from a 1999 nightclub shooting. Lopez--whose publicist said she was on a plane to Asia on Wednesday and could not be reached for comment on the breakup--has been expected to be a witness in that trial.

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‘Beauty’ and the Imax Screen: Walt Disney Pictures will re-release its 1991 movie “Beauty and the Beast”--the only animated film ever nominated for a best picture Oscar--on large-format Imax screens in March 2002. The Imax release will include a newly animated musical sequence, featuring the Howard Ashman-Alan Menken song “Human Again,” which was written and storyboarded for the original movie but never animated.

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Stewart Is Grammy Host: Jon Stewart, the self-deprecating host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” will also host the 43rd annual Grammy Awards, airing on CBS next Wednesday from L.A.’s Staples Center. Rosie O’Donnell handled the hosting duties last year. Whoopi Goldberg, whose hosting stints have included the Oscars, was originally tabbed to emcee this year’s Grammys, but health issues prompted her to decline the invitation, according to sources close to the production.

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‘Sopranos’ Funeral?: “Sopranos” creator David Chase told a New York audience honoring the HBO show this week that he plans to leave the series after its fourth season. The Emmy-winning mob drama begins its third season March 4. Chase, the show’s writer and producer, noted that he and series star James Gandolfini are under contract only through the spring of 2002. But he gave little hint of how he might end the series, saying only that he didn’t think Gandolfini’s character, mob boss Tony Soprano, should die.

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Symphony Rebounding: The San Diego Symphony, which declared bankruptcy in 1996, ended its 1999-2000 season on a positive note, with $386,997 in the bank, the company said. The season before, the orchestra had closed $432,437 in debt. The company isn’t entirely out of the clear, however. Despite an annual budget of $7.1 million, its endowment is less than $1 million.

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Broadway Bound: Hershey Felder’s “George Gershwin Alone” will be the next occupant of Broadway’s 597-seat Helen Hayes Theatre, reports the show’s co-producer and the theater’s co-owner, Martin Markinson. No opening date is set for the solo show, which was at West Hollywood’s Tiffany Theater during much of 2000, but the current Hayes tenant, “Dirty Blonde,” has posted a “last weeks” notice. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “By Jeeves” was also a contender to follow “Dirty Blonde.”