ARTNearing Boom Prices: New York’s fall auction...

ART

Nearing Boom Prices: New York’s fall auction season got off to a strong start on Tuesday night, when Christie’s sold $107.7-million worth of Impressionist and modern art--the firm’s most lucrative sale since May, 1990--the art market’s peak. Seven of the 62 artworks offered failed to find buyers, but 20 items were sold for more than $1 million apiece. Pablo Picasso’s 1932 painting “The Mirror” commanded the top price of $20 million--nearly double its estimated value--from an unidentified collector. Next came Picasso’s 1905 painting “Boy With White Collar,” purchased anonymously for $12.1 million. Henri Matisse’s 6-by-3-foot paper cutout “Chinese Fish,” from the estate of L.A. collector and artist Victoria H. Sperry, was sold anonymously for $6.4 million.

TELEVISION

Short-Lived Boost: “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno returned to the top of the late-night talk-show heap after Tuesday night’s duel, garnering an estimated 15% audience share in overnight ratings from 33 of the nation’s biggest markets, compared to rival David Letterman’s 14% share for his “Late Show,” which began its five-day Los Angeles stand on Monday. Letterman’s viewership has down-spiraled severely in recent weeks, although ratings for Monday’s show had landed him back on top. But Leno not only won nationally Tuesday night, he also trampled Letterman in Los Angeles, where he drew an estimated 23% share of the available viewing audience, as opposed to Letterman’s 10% share.

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Oh, Rob!: Rob and Laura Petrie adorned with leather and whips? That’s the image in December’s Vanity Fair as Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke pose for Annie Leibovitz 30 years after their landmark TV series. The issue, which features the casts of “ER” and “Friends” on the cover, includes cast reunions of other popular series, including “Dallas,” “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” and “Mod Squad.” Current figures also are photographed, including the first joint sitting by news anchors Peter Jennings, Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw.

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Rare Footage: A lost tape of an impromptu 1974 interview of John Lennon by Howard Cosell will air Nov. 20 during ABC’s “Monday Night Football” broadcast. Cosell had conducted the interview when Lennon attended his first NFL game, seated with then-Gov. Ronald Reagan, who reportedly explained the game to Lennon. In the footage, Lennon talks enthusiastically about his first impression of American football and answers Cosell’s query about a possible Beatles reunion by saying, “You never know . . . it’s always in the wind.” Coincidentally, Cosell, who died in April, was the first broadcaster to report Lennon’s death, during “Monday Night Football” on Dec. 8, 1980.

POP/ROCK

Pop Chart: The battle for chart supremacy between L.A. area rappers Tha Dogg Pound and Cypress Hill was no contest as the former’s debut album, “Dogg Food,” sold 278,000 copies during its first week in stores. Mariah Carey’s “Daydream” was No. 2 with 154,000 copies sold, and Cypress Hill’s “Cypress Hill III (Temple of Boom)” debuted at No. 3, selling about 142,000 copies. Another rap album, Eightball & MJG’s “On Top of the World,” debuted at No. 8, selling 82,000 copies.

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Legal Raps: Rapper Tupac Shakur’s record company will pay $300,000 to $500,000 to the parents of Qu’id Walker Teal, a 6-year-old boy who was killed at an outdoor festival in Marin City in 1992 by a stray bullet that allegedly came from a gun owned by Shakur, according to a settlement reported by the San Francisco Chronicle. No criminal charges have been filed against Shakur, 24, who has been arrested six times since 1993 on various charges. . . . Elsewhere in rapdom, Public Enemy’s Flavor Flav, whose real name is William Drayton, was arrested in New York Tuesday night after police allegedly found an automatic weapon in his belt and three vials of crack in a pocket during a random driver-safety stop. The rapper, who also has a history of arrests, finished a three-month jail sentence in August for weapons possession.

QUICK TAKES

Infinity Broadcasting Corp. has handed over $1 million to the U.S. Treasury, the first of two payments totaling $1.7 million, to settle indecency charges brought against “shock jock” Howard Stern, regulators said Wednesday. The remaining $715,000 is to be paid by March 31. The settlement is Uncle Sam’s largest ever from a broadcaster. . . . A supermarket tabloid with color photos of slain tejano singer Selena’s autopsy has been pulled from hundreds of stores in southern Texas. Police were trying to find out how the Globe got hold of the six photos, which were snapped by a police photographer. . . . Former late-night talk-show host Jon Stewart will star in two movies a year for Miramax Films for the next three years. The deal also calls for Stewart to write, produce and act in projects for both film and television. First up is a theatrical adaptation of the Jack Finney novella “The Night People” with Stewart writing, starring and producing.