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

MOVIES & TELEVISION

Happy Birthday, Ms. Monroe

Sotheby’s auction house will join the celebrations of what would have been Marilyn Monroe’s 75th birthday Friday by auctioning off via the Web more than 600 photographs of Monroe, including many images that have never before been published or seen publicly. The auction starts today at Sothebys.com and closes June 20, and the photos will be on public view at Sotheby’s in Los Angeles (9665 Wilshire Blvd.) on Thursday and Friday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The pictures span from 1945 to 1962, and include both amateur and professional shots. Highlights include never-before-seen photos of Monroe and Joe DiMaggio on their honeymoon in 1954, as well as several images from photographer George Barris’ “Last Photos,” a set of final pictures taken of the actress shortly before her death.

Women Honoring (Mostly) Women

“Dateline NBC,” ABC News’ “20/20” and the syndicated “Rosie O’Donnell Show” will all pick up multiple honors at the American Women in Radio and Television’s 26th annual Gracie Allen Awards, taking place Thursday in New York. Additional winners include HBO’s “Sex and the City,” NBC’s “Third Watch,” Lifetime’s “Intimate Portrait,” CBS’ “60 Minutes II,” the syndicated “Inside Edition,” the Radio Disney children’s radio network and actress LisaGay Hamilton (for Showtime’s “A House Divided”). In addition, Spanish-language talk show host Cristina Saralegui will receive the 2001 Gracie Allen Tribute Award. . . . Also handing out its laurels will be Women in Film, which presents its 25th annual Crystal Awards June 8 in Century City. Recipients, honored for helping to expand the role of women in the entertainment industry, include actress Glenn Close, comedian Whoopi Goldberg, Columbia Pictures chairwoman Amy Pascal, casting director Juliet Taylor, director Betty Thomas, cinematographer Amy Vincent and actor Pierce Brosnan and girlfriend Keely Shaye Smith.

Hepburns’ Screen Power Endures

The readers of Biography Magazine have chosen Audrey Hepburn as their “favorite leading actress of all time,” with Katharine Hepburn coming in as the runner-up. More than 2,500 readers voted in the survey. The rest of the top 10, in descending order: Cher, Meryl Streep, Bette Davis, Ingrid Bergman, Jodie Foster, Vivien Leigh, Susan Hayward and (in a tie for 10th place) Susan Sarandon and Barbra Streisand.

Studios Switch Promotional Gears

Walt Disney Pictures and two stars from its blockbuster film “Pearl Harbor” have agreed to help the U.S. Park Service with a $10-million fund-raising effort to expand and renovate the museum and visitors center at the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. Disney is doing a promotional video for the effort and stars Ben Affleck and Cuba Gooding Jr. have agreed to help. Also, 20th Century Fox, which recently released a DVD of its 1970 film “Tora! Tora! Tora!” has pledged to help with fund-raising, said a U.S. Park Service official. More than 1.5 million people a year visit the memorial above the battleship, which was sunk during the Japanese attack on Dec. 7, 1941.

‘Buffy’s’ Comic Book Counterpart

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” creator Joss Whedon is doing a comic-book spinoff of the series, following the adventures of a future slayer and professional thief in the slums of Manhattan. The eight-part Dark Horse Comics series, called “Fray,” goes on sale June 6. “I wanted to do somebody who was different from Buffy,” Whedon told TV Guide. “The idea of magic is just completely foreign to [the comic-book character]. She’s just a girl who has no idea she’s the slayer.”

QUICK TAKES

KTLA-TV today will honor Larry McCormick, who was Los Angeles’ first African American anchorman, for his 30 years at KTLA, by naming the station’s news studio after him. McCormick, a winner of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ Governor’s Award, began his career at KTLA in 1971, as a weatherman. . . . The Oscar-winning “Forrest Gump,” which has never been released on DVD, comes out in a two-disc special edition on Aug. 18. Meanwhile, “Hannibal” comes out on video and DVD on Aug. 21. . . . Cable’s Showtime is making a TV movie version of the enduring baseball play “Bleacher Bums” (it played continuously at L.A.’s Century City Playhouse for 10 years). Wayne Knight, Brad Garrett, Hal Sparks, Matt Craven and Peter Riegert will star. . . . Bruce Springsteen made a surprise appearance Sunday night before about 2,500 fans in his old stamping grounds of Asbury Park, performing for about an hour during a one-year anniversary celebration of the reopening of the club Stone Pony. Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, and rocker Graham Parker also performed.