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

MOVIES

Top of the Heap in Entertainment

The movie execs behind “American Pie 2”--Universal Studios President Ron Meyer and Universal Pictures Chairman Stacey Snider--came out on top in Entertainment Weekly’s annual list of the 101 most powerful people in entertainment.

The duo is cited for a track record of 10 pictures, each of which earned more than $100 million in the U.S. and Canada alone, since 1999.

Tom Hanks was the runner-up, while CBS President Leslie Moonves--last year’s winner--slipped to third.

THE ARTS

End of the Road for Adams’ Group

The Friends of Photography, formed in Carmel in 1967 by Ansel Adams and his colleagues, is going out of business by the end of this month. Its gallery, the Ansel Adams Center in San Francisco, will also close its doors--replaced by the Cartoon Art Museum on Nov. 1

According to Richard C. Edwards, acting interim director, the group carries a long-term debt of $1.2 million--$350,000 of which is due immediately.

“My first objective is to pay off our creditors dollar for dollar,” he said Wednesday. “While the Friends, as an organization, will no longer exist, its collection, galleries, education programs, library and archives will live on.”

The center is in discussions to sell the 140 Adams photos in its collection--said to be valued at between $1.2 million and $2 million. The goal is to keep the collection in the Bay Area and available for public viewing.

Much of the collection has been touring in the exhibition “Ansel Adams, A Legacy,” which has been seen by more than 500,000 people in the U.S. and Japan. At the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, “Ansel Adams at 100”--the first major retrospective of the artist’s work since his death in 1984--is running through Jan. 13.

Parts of Calder Work Found at WTC Site

Workers at the World Trade Center site on Thursday recovered from the ruins two large pieces of “Bent Propeller,” a 25-foot-high, 15-ton outdoor sculpture by Alexander Calder. Created in 1970, the piece was valued at $2.5 million.

A week after the attack, Calder’s grandson Alexander Rower distributed a flier to workers asking them to help recover and preserve the work. He also provided a photo of the bright red sculpture--which Calder created for the Port Authority in 1970. He gave some copies to Victoria Leacock, a friend who had been volunteering on the cleanup effort.

Last Thursday, she showed the flier to a foreman who pointed her toward the crushed, burned mass of steel. Two days later, the second piece turned up. Some missing parts may have been carted away and put on a barge to New Jersey.

About 35% of the piece has been recovered--far less than the 85% Rower says will be needed for the sculpture to be restored. Rower, who is also head of the Calder Foundation, said he’s received offers of financial help.

The chances of salvaging the piece? About 50-50, he said. “The work is owned by the Port Authority,” which, he noted, has “the ultimate decision about its fate.”

Pavarotti the Victorin Tax Fraud Case

A court in Modena, Italy, Friday acquitted opera star Luciano Pavarotti of charges of filing false tax returns.

Prosecutors had maintained that Modena, where the tenor had lived for years and stages annual charity concerts, is the center of his activities. The 66-year-old tenor has long claimed that his official residence is Monte Carlo and argued that the core of his business world is not in Italy.

Prosecutors had sought conviction and a sentence of 11/2 years. Pavarotti agreed last year to pay the Italian government more than $11 million in back taxes and penalties on civil tax evasion charges.

QUICK TAKES

After a stretch of managerial and financial woes, the American Ballet Theatre has appointed a new executive director. Wallace Chappell, director of the University of Iowa’s Hancher Auditorium and a member of the Mark Taper Forum’s artistic staff during 1971-74, replaces Louis Spisto, who resigned in July after less than two years on the job.

The Santa Fe Opera has canceled a new production of Richard Strauss’ “Der Liebe der Danae” planned for the 2002 season, due to economic and travel downturns following last month’s terrorist attacks. It will be replaced by a 1997 revival of Verdi’s “La Traviata.”

Out-of-state ticket sales account for almost 50% of the venue’s annual total.