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

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Kramer Tribute: The Directors Guild of America and the Motion Picture and Television Fund will host a memorial tribute to the late director Stanley Kramer, who died Feb. 19 at age 87, at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Directors Guild of America in Hollywood. Scheduled speakers include DGA President Jack Shea, DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, radio commentator Michael Jackson and actors Beau Bridges, Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier, Kirk Douglas, Milton Berle, Jonathan Winters, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Mickey Rooney and Edie Adams. The public may attend, but reservations are required at (310) 289-5318.

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18-Second Prize: The verdict is in. Animated short Oscar winner Michael Dudok de Wit (“Father and Daughter”) has earned a second prize from the motion picture academy: the high-definition TV set awarded to the giver of Sunday night’s shortest acceptance speech. “I did not write the shortest speech to win the television set. I have many television sets. I wrote it to say what I had to say and no more,” Dudok de Wit said Tuesday. Dudok de Wit, whose giving of thanks lasted a mere 18 seconds, said he will give the new set to a children’s charity.

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Brightening Smiles: Julia Roberts’ Oscar win may help thousands of children achieve their own bright smiles. Twenty-six years ago, Roberts’ hometown dentist in Smyrna, Ga., Dr. Ted Aspes, promised his young patients that if any of them won a grand prize--such as an Oscar, Grammy, Heisman Trophy or Rhodes scholarship--he would give every child in Smyrna a free tube of toothpaste. Now, thanks to Roberts’ best actress win Sunday for “Erin Brockovich,” he’s making good on his offer. Aspes apparently had a lot of faith in his famous former patient, telling the Atlanta Constitution that he had ordered 10,000 tubes of mint-flavored Crest last week.

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Auction Settlement Threatened: The New York judge overseeing a price-fixing suit against auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s threatened to kill a proposed $512-million settlement unless the firms drop a provision barring plaintiffs from suing in U.S. courts over foreign auctions. The judge gave the parties until Monday to drop the provision. The civil antitrust suit was brought by buyers and sellers of artworks and accused Christie’s of colluding with its smaller rival over the past decade. Together, the firms control more than 90% of the $5-billion-a-year auction market. The settlement provides that Sotheby’s and Christie’s each pay $206 million in cash and an additional $62.5 million in discount certificates that can be applied toward sellers’ commissions. Some 130,000 former customers stand to benefit from the settlement.

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‘Ally’ Hitting London Boards? “Ally McBeal” star Calista Flockhart is in line to become the latest Hollywood headliner to hit the London stage. According to London reports, she will take on the Katharine Hepburn role of spoiled rich girl Tracy Lord in a production of “The Philadelphia Story” slated to open in the West End on May 21. In 1999, Flockhart starred in Neil LaBute’s off-Broadway production “Bash,” which later appeared at Beverly Hills’ Canon Theater and was filmed for TV’s Showtime.

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Survivor Inquiry: Australia’s defense minister is demanding an inquiry into how its air force blew hundreds of thousands of dollars flying contestants of CBS’ “Survivor” into a remote forest. The plane’s swoop into the Outback is featured in the show’s opening sequence. “Someone’s made . . . a serious mistake,” said Defense Minister Peter Reith, who said the flight in October cost about $8,000 in fuel but ended up with a tab of $150,000 once staff and operational costs were calculated. An air force spokesman said Tuesday that the flight, in which a Royal Australian Air Force twin-engine Caribou plane dropped off the “Survivor” contestants, was approved because it was a good training exercise.

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OCPAC Lineup: The Orange County Performing Arts Center’s 2001-02 Jazz Club series opens Sept. 13-15 with veteran pianist Dave Brubeck. Other series concerts include pianist Benny Green, guitarist Russell Malone and bassist Christian McBride (Oct. 5-6); the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra (Nov. 24); singer Diana Krall (Dec. 8); and singer Kevin Mahogany (Dec. 21-22). Performances continue next year with singer Jane Monheit (Feb, 1-2), the Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra (April 5-6) and Latin jazz saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera (May 3-4). New subscriptions go on sale June 4, priced at $269 and $304.

QUICK TAKES

Sean “Puffy” Combs has agreed to give MTV News his first sit-down TV interview since his acquittal in New York on gun possession and bribery charges. Excerpts from the interview, scheduled for this morning, will be seen during today’s 4 p.m. “Total Request Live,” as well as today, Thursday and Monday on the 5:30 p.m. hip-hop show “DFX.” . . . A musicians’ strike forced Milan, Italy’s famed La Scala opera house to postpone indefinitely the planned opening night Tuesday of Giuseppe Verdi’s “Falstaff.” The strike was called over a contractual dispute, though the theater’s management would not give details. . . . High-tech investor Alberto Vilar, who recently gave more than $10 million to Los Angeles Opera, has pledged $20 million to New York University for an arts scholarship program, the New York Times reported. . . . ABC’s three-hour remake of “South Pacific” attracted an average audience of 15.8 million viewers on Monday. It was the network’s largest Monday movie audience since last April. . . . CBS is taking applications for the next go-round of its staged, unscripted series “Big Brother.” Information is available at https://www.cbs.com.