Quick Takes - April 23, 2011

Chief faults Sheen assist

A police escort provided to actor Charlie Sheen this week violated department protocol, Washington, D.C., Police Chief Cathy Lanier said Thursday.

Lanier said that police officers on escort duty aren’t supposed to activate emergency equipment, such as lights and sirens, and don’t travel into other jurisdictions without help from other law enforcement agencies. She said the department is investigating why that policy wasn’t followed Tuesday, when a police car escorted Sheen from the airport to his stage show. He was running about an hour late for it, having spent the early part of his day in L.A. court proceedings.

Police spokeswoman Gwendolyn Crump said Sheen’s promotion company has sent the department a $445 check for the escort.

—Associated Press

Kristofferson to sub for Lynn

Organizers of the Stagecoach country music festival said Friday that they had lined up Kris Kristofferson to fill the hole in the lineup that had been created when Loretta Lynn dropped out.

Lynn had announced this week that she was canceling several weeks of scheduled performance dates to recuperate from knee surgery.

Stagecoach will unfold April 30 and May 1 at the Empire Polo Club in Indio. Kristofferson was part of the first Stagecoach festival in 2007.

—Lee Margulies

Torn painting

to be reunited

Two pieces of a torn 660-year-old Chinese painting held by Taiwan and mainland China will be reunited for the first time in centuries at an exhibit at Taiwan’s national museum, in a sign of warming ties between the rivals.

The main portion of “Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains” by revered Chinese landscape painter Huang Gongwang has been stored in Taipei’s Palace Museum since 1949, when the sides separated during a civil war.

The other part of the 20-foot-long painting will be shipped from China’s Zhejiang Provincial Museum for an exhibition opening June 2, Palace Museum Director Chou Kung-shin said.

The 40-day exhibition is widely seen as a gesture by China’s government in support of Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou’s three-year efforts to engage the mainland and reduce political hostilities.

—Associated Press

Gibson talks about scandal

Mel Gibson has broken his silence on his damaging domestic violence scandal, calling the leak of angry personal phone calls with his then-girlfriend last year a “personal betrayal.”

The Oscar-winning director of “Braveheart” described the leaked tapes, in which Gibson was heard ranting, swearing and threatening Russian girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva, “terribly humiliating and painful for my family.”

Gibson added that he did not care if he ever acted again.

“I’ve never treated anyone badly or in a discriminatory way based on their gender, race, religion or sexuality — period,” Gibson told Hollywood journalist Allison Hope Weiner in a lengthy interview that was posted Friday on the website Deadline Hollywood.

Gibson last month pleaded no contest to a charge of hitting Grigorieva, the mother of his baby daughter, as their relationship broke down in early 2010.

He was sentenced to three years probation, a year of counseling and community service.

In his first public comments on the saga, Gibson said the tapes of phone calls leaked a year ago were edited, adding; “It’s one terribly, awful moment in time, said to one person, in the span of one day and doesn’t represent what I truly believe or how I’ve treated people my entire life.”

—Reuters

Carrey cameo on ‘The Office’

Jim Carrey will make a cameo in the season finale of “The Office,” playing an applicant for the management job that Michael Scott (Steve Carell) used to fill — the same one that Deangelo Vickers (Will Ferrell) currently occupies.

Carey will join Ricky Gervais, Will Arnett, James Spader, Ray Romano and Catherine Tate as potential candidates for the position in an hour-long episode that airs May 19 on NBC.

—Melissa Maerz

Langone: It’s all about exposure

Eliminated “American Idol” contestant Stefano Langone said Friday that he was more interested in getting exposure on the talent show than in winning it.

“When I came out for ‘American Idol,’ I never really wanted to be the American Idol. It was getting that foot in the door in the music industry,” the 22-year-old singer told journalists.

—Reuters