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June 13, 2000
Web posted at: 3:20 p.m. EDT (1920 GMT)

From staff and wire reports

Today's buzz stories:

• Brown gets jail time for probation violation
• Jerry Hall to bare all in 'The Graduate'
• 'Frasier' star takes on Shakespeare
• Womack is back with new child, new man, new label
• Italian-American group slams 'Sopranos' producer

Brown

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida -- Bobby Brown has to spend nearly four more weeks behind bars for violating his probation.

A judge sentenced the singer to more time in jail after Brown agreed to plead guilty to refusing to take a second drug test and failing to return on time from a trip to California.

He has been in custody since May 10 and must remain at the Broward County Jail until July 8. Whitney Houston's husband was placed on probation after his conviction for drunken driving and causing an accident in 1996.

Authorities issued an arrest warrant for Brown last June after his probation officer said he tested positive for cocaine. A prosecutor agreed to drop that charge.

Hall

LONDON -- Jerry Hall will try to seduce theatergoers next month when she takes over as Mrs. Robinson in a West End production of "The Graduate."

The 43-year-old model and ex-wife of Mick Jagger assumes the role when Kathleen Turner departs July 29. Like Turner, she is expected to appear nude onstage.

The play, which is expected to run until the end of the year at the Gielgud Theater, is adapted from the 1967 film that starred Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft.

Grammer

NEW YORK - Frasier Crane, Macbeth? Kelsey Grammer, who's spent 16 years playing Dr. Crane on TV sitcoms, hopes audiences will accept him in a slightly more classical role.

"I hope people can say 'Oh, that's different. Let's enjoy it,'" said Grammer, who plays Macbeth in a Broadway production staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Grammer, who was classically trained at the Juilliard School, played the role 20 years ago and "wanted to play it again," said Grammer, whose Shakespearean stint lasts until early August. "Also, it's one of the shorter plays. I didn't want to beat the audience to death with Kelsey Grammer's Hamlet, which can be a very painful experience."

LOS ANGELES - Country singer Lee Ann Womack took a two-year break from the acclaim her first two albums won from critics and fans. Now she's back with some new things -- a new label and album, a new man, a new baby girl.

"The second baby was a surprise, so it was like, 'What am I going to do here?'" said Womack, who already had one daughter when No. 2 came along.

The break gave her more time with daughters, and her husband, who produced some songs on her latest album, "I Hope You Dance."

The girls also figure in her new video - and one of them may have let it go to her head.

"About halfway through the day she said, 'Mom, I don't think you should make any more videos without me.' I thought, Oh, what have I done here?"

BLOOMFIELD, New Jersey -- The critical acclaim for HBO's "The Sopranos" doesn't amount to a hill of linguine for one unhappy group, which says the show perpetuates stereotypes.

The Italian-American One Voice Committee gave producer David Chase its "Pasta-tute" award for "selling out his Italian culture and heritage in the media."

"He has created a fiction and brought it right into real neighborhoods, horribly degrading our image," committee chairman Manny Alfano said Monday. "He has used existing prejudice as a foundation to support his fiction."

An HBO spokesman declined comment on the criticism of the Mafia-oriented show.