Quick Takes: ‘America’ is still his name

Captain America will get to keep top billing in most of the world when his superhero adventure hits the big screen this month.

Paramount Pictures and Marvel Studios gave distributors around the world the option of shortening the title of “Captain America: The First Avenger” to simply “The First Avenger” out of concern about anti-American sentiment.

But the only countries that took them up on it were Russia, Ukraine and South Korea.

In other territories, the movie will go out with the full title, a sign that the brand value of the Marvel Comics hero trumps any potential anti-U.S. feelings in some parts of the world.

—Associated Press

‘Gimcrack’ is anything but

A horse painting by George Stubbs fetched $35.9 million at Christie’s in London on Tuesday, the third-most-valuable old master painting to be sold at auction, the company said.

“Gimcrack on Newmarket Heath, With a Trainer, a Stable-Lad, and a Jockey” was painted in 1765. Stubbs was renowned for his anatomically precise portrayals of horses.

Christie’s said the result placed Stubbs third in the old master auction ranking behind “The Massacre of the Innocents” by Peter Paul Rubens, which fetched $76.7 million at Sotheby’s in 2002, and “Modern Rome — Campo Vaccino” by J.M.W. Turner, which the J. Paul Getty Museum in Brentwood bought for $44.9 million at Sotheby’s in 2010.

Also Tuesday, Christie’s set an auction record for Thomas Gainsborough, whose “Portrait of Miss Read, Later Mrs. William Villebois” sold for $10.5 million, nearly doubling the previous high.

—Reuters

Picasso drawing stolen in S.F.

Police are on the hunt for a man who walked into a San Francisco art gallery, grabbed a valuable pencil drawing by Pablo Picasso off the wall, then fled in a waiting taxicab.

Police on Tuesday said the drawing, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, was taken from the Weinstein Gallery near Union Square.

The gallery said Picasso created the one-of-a-kind drawing titled “Tete de Femme” in 1965.

—Associated Press

Eminem sets digital sales mark

Eminem’s “Recovery” this week has become the first album to sell 1 million digital downloads in the United States, the rapper’s label, Interscope Records, said Tuesday. That’s about 25% of the collection’s U.S. sales total, which is nearing 4 million copies since its release last year, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The achievement comes just a week after Eminem returned to the No.1 slot on the national sales chart with his collaboration with rapper Royce da 5’9”, “Bad Meets Evil,” giving Eminem his second No.1 album within 12 months.

Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl” became the first single to surpass 1 million for paid digital downloads in 2005.

—Randy Lewis

L.A. County issues arts grants

Los Angeles County will issue about $4.1 million in arts grants for the 2011-12 fiscal year that began July 1, holding steady at the level reached after last year’s 6.8% reduction.

The grants — which go to nonprofit arts organizations rather than to individuals — will be spread a tad thinner, however. The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved the 184 grants proposed by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, an average of $22,380, down from $24,807 a year ago, when the $4.1 million went to 166 organizations.

KCET-TV Channel 28 was awarded $206,300 toward a new weekly half-hour arts and culture series called “ARC” that station executive Juan Devis said is expected to debut this fall.

—Mike Boehm

Duran Duran cancels tour

Veteran band Duran Duran has called off its summer tour because frontman Simon Le Bon is recovering from voice problems.

The European tour had been due to start in Dublin next week and continue through mid-September.

Le Bon said Tuesday he had damaged muscles controlling his vocal cords and had been advised to undergo physical therapy.

—Associated Press