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

TV & RADIO

Mayoral Debate: Radio station KPCC-FM (89.3) will air a live debate between the six major Los Angeles mayoral candidates today from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. “AirTalk” host Larry Mantle will moderate the debate, which takes place at Temple Adat Ari El in North Hollywood and is open to the public. The debate will be rebroadcast on Mantle’s show Wednesday at 9 a.m.

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Bad Blood: “BET Tonight” host Tavis Smiley will not continue to host his nightly talk show on cable’s BET through September after all. The network, which announced last week that it was not renewing Smiley’s contract but expected him to continue hosting the show until the deal’s end, has subsequently announced Smiley’s “immediate termination,” noting that guest hosts will be used until a permanent replacement is named. In the announcement, BET Chairman Robert L. Johnson cited “a number of public and private concerns. . . . Recent actions by Mr. Smiley left us little recourse but to make this move.” Johnson, who was to appear on the 11 p.m. program Monday to take viewer calls about the Smiley issue, referred to Smiley’s appearance last week on Tom Joyner’s radio show, on which Smiley lamented that his dismissal came via a short fax to his agent, saying: “I launched, have hosted and executive produced this show since its inception. . . . After five years . . . could not one person have picked up the phone to call me personally?” Host Joyner had speculated, meanwhile, that BET’s new parent company, Viacom, was behind Smiley’s dismissal. Smiley had no comment Monday on his termination.

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See It All: Starting Tuesday, visitors to New York’s Rockefeller Center will be able to go on a 75-minute, behind-the-scenes walking tour of the landmark venue, which is home to the NBC network, Radio City Music Hall and Christie’s auction house. Among other things, the $10 tour will focus on the 1940 complex’s construction and architecture, as well as its numerous works of public art.

MOVIES

The Play’s the Real Thing: UCLA’s Clark Library, which houses rare books in L.A.’s West Adams district, has acquired a pair of Marquis de Sade manuscripts written during the author’s confinement in the French asylum that served as the setting for the movie “Quills,” for which Geoffrey Rush was up for a best actor Oscar. The plays, written in 1812, will be unveiled May 6 at a library fund-raiser.

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Oscar Wrap: Four-time winner “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” is due on home video and DVD June 5, from Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment. . . . “Big Mama,” which won the documentary short award, can be seen May 30 on cable’s Cinemax.

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Solar Power Makes His Day: Clint Eastwood has paid a visit to Gov. Gray Davis to personally endorse a pending state bill that would allow schools, nonprofits and businesses to receive credit for wind or solar energy that they add to the state’s power grid. Eastwood’s interest in the bill is personal: His Tehama Golf and Country Club has 242 photovoltaic panels powering everything from the clubhouse to the golf carts. The system produces 32 kilowatt hours a day and Eastwood sends thousands of surplus kilowatt hours to Pacific Gas & Electric Co. each year, but so far he’s received no financial credit.

POP/ROCK

Beatles Wrinkle: The musical partnership between Beatles duo John Lennon and Paul McCartney apparently almost came to an end before the legendary band was formed. According to “The Quarrymen,” a new book by Beatles biographer Hunter Davies, Lennon wanted to throw McCartney out of the Quarrymen, his original band formed when they were teenagers, because he thought McCartney was “precocious.” But Lennon’s school friend and fellow band member Eric Griffiths apparently persuaded him not to drop McCartney, saying he thought McCartney was very talented and had a lot to contribute. “I like to think that was my greatest contribution to the history of the Beatles--not letting John chuck Paul out of the Quarrymen,” Griffiths says in the book.

QUICK TAKES

Jazz saxophonist Joshua Redman will perform material from his new album, “Passage of Time” during a free, 20-minute, in-store performance at Borders Books in Westwood today at noon. . . . Stockard Channing and Sam Waterston will play the parents of slain hate-crime victim Matthew Shepard in NBC’s “The Matthew Shepard Story,” being directed by Roger Spottiswoode and executive-produced by Goldie Hawn. A fall 2001 premiere is slated. . . . John Travolta’s sci-fi bomb “Battlefield Earth” topped seven of nine categories in the 21st annual Golden Raspberry Awards given out for the year’s worst films Saturday. The film was named worst picture and Travolta took the dubious worst actor distinction, while Madonna was deemed worst actress for her turn in “The Next Best Thing.” . . . Speaking of Madonna, she and her film director-husband, Guy Ritchie, have agreed to work together on a BMW commercial, Time magazine reports. The two teamed for Madonna’s latest video, “What It Feels Like for a Girl,” which was shown only once by music video channels MTV and VH1 because of what executives there deemed excessive violence.