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

POP/ROCK

Shared Custody: Controversial rapper Eminem has reached a divorce agreement with his wife, Kim Mathers, giving them joint custody of their 5-year-old daughter. According to the agreement, Eminem will keep the couple’s $450,000 home, but his wife will receive $475,000 to purchase a house. Mathers and Eminem, whose real name is Marshall Mathers III, married in June 1999. Kim Mathers filed for divorce on March 1, following a reported two-month reconciliation attempt. Despite the contentious tone of their earlier aborted divorce proceedings, Eminem’s attorney told the Detroit News that negotiations this time around were “not contentious at all” since “each person was . . . concerned with the well-being of their daughter.”

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Lawmakers Lauded: The recording academy will give Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) its Heroes Award during ceremonies in Washington today. “Not only do they protect music through important copyright legislation, they also understand the important role music plays in our culture,” said Michael Green, recording academy president. Rapper Missy Elliott and Washington’s Duke Ellington School of the Arts, a performing arts high school, will also be recognized.

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Musical Presents: Rock band Bon Jovi will be the wedding singers at a mass 75-couple ceremony in Las Vegas next month. The nuptials will be held at the Graceland Wedding Chapel, the same site where singer John Bon Jovi wed childhood sweetheart Dorothea Hurley 11 years ago. The couples--who will be serenaded April 21 by the band’s current ballad, “Thank You for Loving Me”--were chosen through radio contests nationwide.

TV & MOVIES

Smoking on Screen: The Hollywood Entertainment Museum will use a $650,000 state grant to mount an interactive exhibition documenting the image of smoking as portrayed in movies and other mass media. “Smoke, Lies and Videotape,” scheduled to open next March for a 10-month run, will be “designed to capture how Hollywood’s depiction of smoking and tobacco products was influenced by the social attitudes during various periods of our mass media culture,” museum President Phyllis Caskey said. She said the exhibit will aim to deter tobacco addiction by reaching teenage and young adult audiences at risk of becoming smokers, while demonstrating through moving, still and audio images the history of mass media’s role in creating a desire to use tobacco products. The grant was awarded by the California Department of Health Services’ Tobacco Control Section.

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Ohh Noo! Mr. Bill!: Mr. Bill, the ill-fated Play-Doh character from “Saturday Night Live’s” early days, is getting a new life cycle on the Internet and on home video. Lions Gate Home Entertainment and CinemaNow have secured creator Walter Williams’ complete “Mr. Bill” library, with the first new VHS and DVD volumes due in stores this summer. Meanwhile, “Mr. Bill Goes to Space,” about the animated character’s disastrous trip to the Russian space station Mir, was to go up on the Internet Tuesday at https://www.cinemanow.com, to coincide with the scheduled dumping this week of the real Mir space station into the South Pacific Ocean.

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Oscar Watching: The motion picture academy is asking the public to vote over the Internet for their “favorite Oscar memories,” with the results to be announced during ABC’s official Academy Awards arrival show Sunday, “Countdown to the Oscars 2001.” Among the 15 clips up for votes on the “fun and games” section of https://www.oscar.com: David Niven’s quick-witted response to an unscripted streaker in 1974, John Wayne’s final Oscar appearance in 1979, Jack Palance’s one-armed push-ups in 1992, Cuba Gooding Jr.’s enthusiastic acceptance speech in 1997, and Roberto Benigni’s chair walk in 1999. The half-hour arrivals show, meanwhile, will be hosted by “Entertainment Tonight” anchor Julie Moran, MTV News correspondent Chris Connelly and former CNN “Showbiz Today” anchor Jim Moret. And for Spanish-language viewers, KTLA will provide Spanish translation via SAP of its red-carpet arrivals show, airing from 3:30 to 5 p.m.

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Latino Superhero: It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Monsignor Martinez chasing drug lords in San Diego! That’s the basis of a new prime-time comedy series pilot for Fox that will begin shooting soon. Ivo Cutzarida (“Tuesdays With Morrie”) will play the excommunicated religious crime fighter.

QUICK TAKES

Spanish-language station KMEX-TV will broadcast the UCLA town hall meeting between Gov. Gray Davis and Mexican President Vicente Fox on Thursday from 5 to 6 p.m., with no commercial interruptions. The program will be repeated that night at midnight. . . . Bruce Springsteen will make a rare TV talk-show appearance when he guests alongside baseball hero Mark McGwire on tonight’s “On the Record With Bob Costas.” Costas’ program airs on HBO, the same network that will air Springsteen’s April 7 concert special. . . . The Pasadena Civic Auditorium performances of the Stars of St. Petersburg Ballet, scheduled for this Thursday and Friday, have been canceled due to low ticket sales.