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

LEGAL FILE

Do Actresses Need Driving School?: Oscar winner Gwyneth Paltrow has been sued by two people who allege the actress crashed into them and caused them “permanent and serious injuries” in a West Hollywood car accident last year. The suit, which gives no details about the alleged injuries, also names Midway Rent-A-Car. The plaintiffs, Veronica Cabello and H. Jorge Arauz, say Paltrow was driving one of the company’s cars at the time of the crash. Paltrow’s spokesman had no immediate response to the suit. The action against Paltrow follows similar suits filed in recent months against Halle Berry and Catherine Zeta-Jones over car crashes involving those actresses.

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From One Sock Puppet to Another: In a case of hand-to-hand sock puppet combat, Internet pet supply company Pets.com has sued comedy writer Robert Smigel for defamation and trade libel. The Internet company charges that Smigel, creator and voice of the foul-mouthed Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog--a recurring character on NBC’s “Late Night With Conan O’Brien”--has been spreading the word, via Triumph, that the sock puppet “spokesdog” used in Pets.com’s ads is a Triumph knockoff. The lawsuit, portions of which appeared Tuesday on the media Web site https://www.tvbarn.com, asks for unspecified damages and legal costs from Smigel. Smigel could not be reached for comment.

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Legal Briefs: Latin pop star Enrique Iglesias has sued Fonovisa Inc., claiming his former label is withholding some $3 million due him from his record sales. In the same lawsuit, Interscope Records, Iglesias’ new label, claims Fonovisa violated its copyright to Iglesias’ hit, “Bailamos,” by releasing the song on two compilation recordings. Fonovisa officials could not be reached for comment. . . . A Los Angeles federal judge has dismissed director Tony Kaye’s suit against New Line Cinema and the Directors Guild of America over their refusal to remove Kaye’s name from the 1998 film “American History X.” Kaye sought to remove his name after the movie’s star, Edward Norton, made changes to the film.

THEATER

Call Her Madam: Chita Rivera will open the Reprise! Broadway’s Best in Concert’s 2000-01 season at UCLA’s Freud Playhouse, starring in Irving Berlin’s “Call Me Madam,” Sept. 13-24. Broadway legend Rivera made her professional debut as a principal dancer on the musical’s first national tour (including an L.A. stop) in 1953. The rest of the Reprise! season: Douglas Sills--who is performing in “The Scarlet Pimpernel” at the Ahmanson Theatre through June 18--stars in Jerry Herman’s “Mack & Mabel,” Nov. 8 to 19, and a concert adaptation of “Strike Up the Band” is slated for Feb. 22-March 4.

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This ‘Rainbow’ Hard to Find: “Finian’s Rainbow” is off the summer schedule of the Ahmanson Theatre after producer Rodger Hess failed to raise $1.5 million of the $5 million needed for the show. Hess said he suspects that one roadblock was “resistance to the racial issues” that are raised in the 1947 musical, which comments satirically on black-white relations. He had hired Peter Stone to rewrite the book and actor and director Ossie Davis to consult on the project, and racial objections weren’t explicitly stated, he said. But he was unable to attract either a name star or a Broadway theater (for the post-Ahmanson run) that would have been big enough. Ahmanson officials are looking for a replacement show.

POP/ROCK

Bowl Honors Garth Brooks: Country singer Garth Brooks will become one of the first inductees into the newly created Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame, joining the previously announced honoree, composer John Williams. The two will be feted at the Bowl’s Opening Night Gala June 23, with John Mauceri leading the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra in tributes to the inductees. Brooks, who performed with the orchestra in a 1994 benefit concert at the Bowl, is also expected to perform. Tickets go on sale Sunday.

QUICK TAKES

Julianna Margulies’ final episode on NBC’s “ER” is scheduled to air May 11. The network has not said how her character, Nurse Hathaway, will be written out. . . . Tickets for Metallica’s July 15 show at the L.A. Coliseum with Korn, Kid Rock and others go on sale at 10 a.m. today through 5 p.m. Friday via the Internet only at https://www.mtv.com. Regular ticket sales begin Saturday. . . . CBS is in preproduction on “American Tragedy,” a four-hour miniseries based on Lawrence Schiller’s bestseller of the same name about the behind-closed-doors workings of O.J. Simpson’s defense team. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Norman Mailer will write the script. . . . Cable’s CNN will air a town hall meeting with First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in which she’ll take questions about the New York Senate race, tonight at 7. Her opponent, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, has committed to do a similar CNN broadcast, but the date hasn’t been set. . . . “Divas: Simply Singing!”--an offshoot of the annual benefit concert that returns to the Wilshire Ebell Theatre May 6--was released on CD this week, with proceeds going to Project Angel Food. The album, featuring Sheryl Lee Ralph, Peggy Lee, Oleta Adams, Melissa Manchester and others, will be sold exclusively at Virgin Megastores. Ralph and several other performers will sign copies of the CD on Thursday at 7 p.m. at Virgin’s Sunset Strip store. . . . Bruce Willis will donate his entire undisclosed salary from upcoming guest appearances on NBC’s “Friends” to five charities serving AIDS patients, rape victims and underprivileged children. . . . Martial arts film star Jet Li has a new baby daughter, Jane, born last Wednesday. It’s Li’s first child with wife Nina, but he has two daughters from a previous marriage.