Arts and entertainment reports from The Times, national and international news services and the nation’s press.

TV & MOVIES

Badder Than Oprah Wants Him to Be: Talk-show host Oprah Winfrey, who has Ellen DeGeneres and new girlfriend Anne Heche (“Volcano)” as guests today, has dropped another headline-making guest because she thinks his obscenity-laced book is too risque. The guest non-grata? Basketball’s resident bad boy. “After reviewing Dennis Rodman’s new book, we decided it would be inappropriate to promote it to our viewers,” said a statement released by Winfrey’s show. Rodman’s book, called “Walk On the Wild Side,” includes his claims that he once had an affair with a transsexual, dates mostly white women because black women ignored him before he became a star and plans to change his name legally to Orgasm. Rodman did guest on “Oprah” in May 1996, just before publication of his first book, “Bad as I Wanna Be.”

Honoring ‘Accurate’ Portrayals: “Trainspotting,” a gritty tale of heroin use, picked up the feature film award at the first Prism Awards recognizing “outstanding efforts of the entertainment industry to accurately depict . . . violence and drug abuse.” Presented at the Beverly Hilton Tuesday by the Entertainment Industries Council in partnership with the National Institute on Drug Abuse, other award winners included Showtime’s “Drunks” (TV movie), “The Geraldo Rivera Show” (TV reality program) and NBC’s “The More You Know” PSA campaign (community service). The TV series category was a tie, with ABC’s “Grace Under Fire” and WB’s “The Parent ‘Hood” both being recognized.

JAZZ

Jarrett Ailing: Pianist Keith Jarrett has a serious undisclosed health problem and has canceled his performance dates for the balance of the year. The condition, according to Jarrett’s manager, Steve Cloud, is unrelated to the muscular problems for which Jarrett has required frequent chiropractic attention in past tours. Although declining to name Jarrett’s affliction, Cloud called it “a serious illness with debilitating side effects” that is “not a fatal disease, but will require an extended sabbatical for an indefinite period of time.” Jarrett, 51, has canceled his scheduled performances in Europe and the United States, including the opening of the new Yoshi’s Jazz Club in Oakland on May 9-10. His latest album, a recording of a solo jazz concert performance at Milan’s La Scala Opera House, is scheduled for release on June 3.

THE ARTS

Drama Desk Nominations: Two new Broadway musicals, “The Life” and “Steel Pier,” each garnered nine nominations to lead the field for the annual Drama Desk awards, which will be presented by the New York theater critics’ group May 18. Both shows were nominated for best musical, along with the off-Broadway production “Violet.” Best play nominees were “Dealer’s Choice,” “How I Learned to Drive,” “The Last Night of Ballyhoo,” “This Is Our Youth” and “The Striker.” “Chicago,” which is being turned into a movie by Miramax, received eight nominations, including best musical revival.

Making Cities ‘Livable’: Declaring that “culture is what makes cities livable and attractive,” National Endowment for the Arts Chairwoman Jane Alexander testified before a Senate committee Tuesday in the first of a series of hearings on the endowment’s reauthorization. Stressing the merits of arts education and asserting that an absence of the arts leaves young folks “idle,” Alexander told the senators that it is a democratic government’s responsibility to invest “in the future of its children.” She also noted that the country’s current climate and debate over values makes “the federal government’s commitment to the arts and the creative imagination . . . more important than ever.” Others who testified before the Senate panel Tuesday included Sheldon Hackney, president of the National Endowment for the Humanities, which is also up for reauthorization.

POP/ROCK

Manson Furor Continues: Protests over shock rocker Marilyn Manson’s U.S. concert tour have landed in the courts. Concert promoter Delsener-Slater Enterprises has sued to force officials at New Jersey’s Meadowlands complex to carry through with a planned music festival that was to have included Manson, a self-avowed Satan worshiper who writes lyrics about murder, rape and self-mutilation. Citing crowd concerns and the nature of Manson’s act, New Jersey officials had canceled the June 15 OzzFest ’97 earlier this month after the promoter refused to remove Manson from the lineup. Last week, city officials in Richmond, Va., who had similarly banned the group, reluctantly allowed Manson to proceed with plans for a May 10 concert after Virginia’s ACLU threatened legal action.

QUICK TAKES

CBS news anchor Dan Rather has signed with King Features to pen a once-a-week syndicated newspaper column, with the first edition scheduled for June 2. . . . Declaring that “we owe our viewers more than this,” the nighttime anchors of WMAQ-TV, the Chicago station that last week signed talk-show host Jerry Springer to do a daily commentary for the newscast, are speaking out against their new co-worker. Staff members have hinted that the anchors, Ron Magers and Carol Marin, may walk out rather than introduce Springer’s segments, which are to begin May 5. Station officials maintain that Springer’s hiring shouldn’t affect the newscast’s credibility.