Quick Takes: Roman Polanski picks up prize

Roman Polanski returned to the Zurich Film Festival on Tuesday to accept the lifetime achievement award he was unable to pick up two years ago after being arrested for a decades-old sex-crime case in Los Angeles.

The Polish-French director of “Rosemary’s Baby” was detained on arrival at Zurich airport in 2009 on charges of having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977. He spent months in prison and later house arrest, but successfully avoided extradition to the United States after the Swiss government declined to deport him.

Now able to travel unhindered to Switzerland, Polanski, 78, arrived at the festival hall on Tuesday to a standing ovation. He received more sustained clapping later when he went to the stage.

“What I can say? Better late than never,” he said, as the audience broke into laughter. “…It’s a very moving moment for me.”

—Associated Press

Coward play to have U.S. bow

Noel Coward wrote more than 60 plays, musicals and revues — and nearly 30 of them landed on Broadway. Now L.A.’s Antaeus Company will write a new, belated chapter in Coward’s artistic history on these shores: On Oct. 20 it will open “Peace in Our Time,” a 65-year-old drama that had not been staged in America until now.

The play, written in 1946 and first produced in 1947, has humorous elements but doesn’t fit the mold that established Coward, who died in 1973, as the 20th century epitome of urbane and frothy British wit.

Instead, it imagines the aftermath of a Nazi conquest of Britain, focusing on several years in the life of a London pub whose customers include occupying Germans.

—Mike Boehm

15 vie for rock hall induction

Guns N’ Roses, the Beastie Boys, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Eric B. & Rakim and the Cure are among the 15 nominees for induction as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s class of 2012.

In addition, ‘70s female-fronted rock acts Heart and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts are under consideration along with singer-songwriter Laura Nyro, disco queen Donna Summer, R&B collective War and British rock group Small Faces. Blues guitarist and singer Freddie King, R&B band the Spinners and Scots singer-songwriter Donovan round out the latest batch of nominees.

Inductees are typically announced in December.

—Randy Lewis

‘Boss’ hired for second season

Nearly a month before “Frasier” alum Kelsey Grammer makes his Starz debut in the new drama “Boss,” the network said Tuesday that it has ordered a second season for 2012.

In “Boss,” Grammer stars as a ruthless Chicago mayor trying to mask a deteriorating mental condition.

—Yvonne Villarreal

CBS scores with 10 news Emmys

CBS was the big winner at the 32nd annual News

and Documentary Emmy Awards, collecting 10 trophies overall, including seven for stories that appeared on “60 Minutes.”

The National Geographic Channel picked up seven Emmys at the ceremony in New York City on Monday night, while PBS got six. Former CNN talk show host Larry King received a lifetime achievement award.

—Lee Margulies