TELEVISIONCast as Liz: Actress Sherilyn Fenn (“Twin...

TELEVISION

Cast as Liz: Actress Sherilyn Fenn (“Twin Peaks,” “Boxing Helena”) has been cast as Elizabeth Taylor in the NBC miniseries “Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story,” the network announced Friday. The network plans to air the miniseries during May sweeps. Elizabeth Taylor has objected to the project and recently lost a court battle to have it halted.

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Dream Teaming: Woody Allen and Peter Falk will star in a new version of Neil Simon’s “The Sunshine Boys” for CBS, network entertainment president Peter Tortorici said Friday. Simon is updating his play and making the characters younger to reflect the stars’ ages. George Burns and Walter Matthau starred in a 1975 film adaptation of the story about a former comedy team who reunite for a TV special. The TV movie will go into production in March.

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Absolutely Roseanne: Roseanne is adapting an American TV version of the British comedy “Absolutely Fabulous,” about two wacky, outrageous friends. Roseanne has acquired the rights to the BBC series, seen in the United States on cable’s Comedy Central, and is developing a prototype for an American version with her production company and Warner Bros. Television. Jennifer Saunders, one of the stars of the series, would act as a consultant, executives said.

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Ready for Battle: NBC Entertainment President Warren Littlefield gave a public vote of confidence on Friday to his network’s “Late Night With Conan O’Brien,” which on Monday will face new head-to-head competition from CBS’ “Late Late Show With Tom Snyder.” In a press release describing “dramatic ratings gains” for O’Brien in the November ratings sweeps, Littlefield said: “Conan rose to the challenge and shined. The show continues to build (in the ratings) and creatively is getting better all the time. We are very excited and encouraged by the continued momentum.” Nationally, O’Brien’s November ratings were up 18% over last year, including a 57% gain in the Los Angeles market. O’Brien’s November average of 1.86 million viewing homes still ranks below David Letterman’s average 2.42 million homes during the same period in 1992, when Letterman’s program aired in O’Brien’s same NBC time slot.

MOVIES

Seeing Red: Claiming that rules governing foreign co-productions are antiquated, Miramax Films is asking academy members and film industry leaders to petition the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to reconsider its disqualification of Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “Red” as the Swiss entry in the foreign language category. Though it was shot in Switzerland, “Red”--voted best foreign film by several critics groups--did not meet the academy’s mandate that creative talent in the nation of submission exercise artistic control of the movie. Because the director, writers, cinematographer, editor and several other key personnel are from foreign countries outside of Switzerland, academy President Arthur Hiller says it is “a little hard for (the academy) to invite them in” as a Swiss entry. Kieslowski’s “White,” another film from his tricolor trilogy, is the official 1994 Polish entry; his “Blue” was disqualified last year because it was shot in French rather than a language of the country of origin (Poland).

ART

Attributed to Cellini: A bronze figure of Cleopatra, which was exhibited at Sotheby’s Beverly Hills showroom last month as part of the “Cyril Humphris Collection,” has been identified by a Santa Barbara expert as being a model executed by 16th-Century Florentine sculptor Benvenuto Cellini, whose known surviving sculptures number fewer than 15. The work was originally attributed to the French School of Fontainebleau, where Cellini worked for King Francois I. Other scholars had offered tentative links to Cellini, but a definitive tie had not been made. However, Santa Barbara University professor Peter Mellor, who saw the work when it was exhibited in Beverly Hills, matched the sculpture to an inventory of Cellini’s studio at the time of his death. That list included two Cleopatra models, one of which is presumed to be the bronze in question. The reclining Cleopatra bronze will be auctioned by Sotheby’s in New York Tuesday and Wednesday. Because of Mellor’s attribution of the work as a Cellini, Sotheby’s predicts that the sculpture could sell for 10 times its original low estimate of $25,000.

QUICK TAKES

Radio station KLOS-FM (95.5) will join KROQ-FM (106.7) in carrying Sunday night’s live Pearl Jam radio show, “Self Pollution Radio.” The program, broadcast from the band’s hometown of Seattle, airs from 7:30 to 10:30. A phone number for listener call-ins will be announced at the show’s start. . . . Starting on Wednesday KCAL-TV Channel 9 will interrupt its daytime programming to offer updates of the O.J. Simpson murder trial at five regular intervals. The updates, which will be approximately two minutes each, will air daily at 9 a.m., 10 a.m., 11 a.m., 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. . . . Writer-director-producer James Cameron (“True Lies,” “The Terminator”) will be honored as producer of the year March 9 at the annual motion picture industry trade convention, NATO/ShoWest ‘95, in Las Vegas.