THE ARTSFalse Alarm: A phony bomb threat...

THE ARTS

False Alarm: A phony bomb threat at the Hollywood Bowl Monday night forced an early end to an invitational orchestra rehearsal for about 1,500 musicians. Officials called off the rehearsal a half-hour early and evacuated the Bowl after a “crank call” threatened a bomb was on the stage. A police search found nothing.

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Lovers’ Graffiti: Roy Lichtenstein’s 1962 painting “Curtains,” part of the Museum of Contemporary Art-organized exhibition “Hand-Painted Pop: American Art in Transition, 1955-62” (seen here last winter), was vandalized over the weekend at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art, where the show is currently on view. An apparent lover scrawled his devotion on the painting, which belongs to the St. Louis Art Museum. In what appears to be felt pen, the vandal wrote the names “Reggie and Crystal” encircled in a heart, and in another area of the painting, “I Love You,” “Tushee” and “Love Buns.” A Whitney spokesman said that the damage won’t be formally evaluated by conservators until it is returned to St. Louis, but that a Whitney registrar who examined it “felt that it could be easily repaired.”

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Local Hero: James Earl Jones is making front-page news this week in the rural lakeside community of Manistee, Mich., population 6,700. Jones, who grew up in nearby Brethern, Mich., got his professional start at Manistee’s 90-year-old Ramsdell Theatre, where he returned this week to raise funds for the theater’s restoration. “It’s not just a theater, it’s a temple; it deserves to continue,” Jones said of the theater where he began as an electrician and carpenter in the early 1950s, then did several dozen summer stock plays including “Othello.” Several hundred townsfolk lined up around the block for Jones’ autograph, and the town erected a huge marquee welcoming him home.

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‘Jeffrey’ on Tap: The triple Obie-winning comedy “Jeffrey” will open at the Westwood Playhouse Sept. 29 for an eight-week engagement. The production features the original New York cast, including Obie winner Edward Hibbert. Paul Rudnick’s story follows a young New York actor-waiter who takes up celibacy, then meets a bartender who seems to be the man of his dreams. Previews begin Sept. 24.

The Last ‘Phantom’ Tickets: Thirty pairs of tickets to the sold-out final two weeks of “The Phantom of the Opera” are being sold to benefit Equity Fights AIDS. Prices range from $150 to $350; tickets are available through Actors’ Equity in Hollywood.

MOVIES

Out of Danger: Italian doctors declared celebrated director Federico Fellini out of danger Tuesday, a week after a stroke paralyzed his left side. But the latest health bulletin said the 73-year-old Fellini would have to remain “under close and rigid medical supervision” because of previous problems with his blood circulation. Fellini collapsed Aug. 3 in his favorite Rimini hotel, where he was recovering from a secret 14-hour heart bypass operation he underwent in Zurich in June.

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New Stooges Suit: The grandson of founding “Three Stooges” member Moe Howard has filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court claiming that Columbia Pictures demonstrated “bad faith” in merchandising “Three Stooges” videos and in not producing a film about the zany comedians. Jeffrey Scott and his Norman Maurer Productions are seeking attorneys’ fees and a court order allowing them to terminate the agreement with Columbia. The case is unrelated to a legal brawl between families of the former Stooges over who has rights to up to $5 million in marketing profits.

RADIO/TV

Hall of Famers: Talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” pioneering writer-producer-director Norman Corwin, Chicago radio personality Wally Phillips and the late Rick Sklar, a guiding hand in the development of rock ‘n’ roll radio, have been selected for induction into Chicago’s Radio Hall of Fame. They will be formally inducted Nov. 7.

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Another Pairing: Harry Smith and Paula Zahn, normally seen on “CBS This Morning,” will take over as co-anchors of the “CBS Evening News” Sunday edition this week, marking the program’s first time with co-anchors. But the gig will be short-lived because Zahn is expected to go on maternity leave by October.

QUICK TAKES

A Los Angeles judge has awarded Leigh Anne Grammer, the wife of former “Cheers” star Kelsey Grammer, $7,500 a month in support while the couple pursues an annulment or divorce after less than a year of marriage. . . . Pop star Michael Jackson is taking his act to Moscow, where he will perform on Sept. 15 in the 100,000-seat Lyzhniki Olympic Stadium. . . . Elton John, Sting, Aerosmith and Melissa Etheridge will join singer Don Henley in a Labor Day concert at Massachusetts’ Foxboro Stadium to benefit the Walden Woods Project, a nonprofit environmental organization founded by Henley. . . . Jane Fonda’s ex, California state Sen. Tom Hayden, wed actress Barbara Williams Saturday near the site of a logging blockade in British Columbia where hundreds of protesters were arrested. The couple’s vows, exchanged before a Buddhist priest, included a pledge to preserve old-growth forests.