ART

Museums Survive--For Now: The California Afro-American Museum in Exposition Park has a new lease on life--for a year. The state-funded museum was threatened with closure today as part of a budget squeeze. But a Senate subcommittee that had recommended deleting the museum’s $950,000 budget has voted unanimously to continue the institution’s funding for another year. An outpouring of community support is responsible for the reprieve, according to a museum spokesperson. Among the museum’s scheduled programming is “John Outterbridge: Keeper of the Tradition,” an eagerly anticipated retrospective of the career of the noted L.A. artist and community leader that opens Aug. 21. The California Museum of Science and Industry, which also was threatened with closure, also had its funding restored.

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Sculptor’s Tragedy: The contents of the Washington studio of sculptor Felix de Weldon, 76, creator of the Iwo Jima Memorial known officially as the Marine Corps War Memorial, was auctioned off for paltry sums Monday in a bankruptcy auction the artist called “disgraceful.” Weldon’s dilapidated 19th-Century brick studio and its contents were sold to pay off creditors; the artist filed for bankruptcy when he was unable to repay a $1.5-million loan he had taken out for the care of his late wife who had Alzheimer’s disease. Three buildings and land went for $30,000, and various busts and other items inside for $25 to $1,000 each. A plaster scale model of the Iwo Jima Memorial went for $100. Said the artist: “In any other country someone like me becomes a national treasure. Except in the rich United States, they try to ruin somebody who created many heroic monuments.”

TELEVISION

7-Year-Old Power: “Full House” twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, the lovable 7-year-olds who switch off playing the role of Michelle, have signed an agreement with ABC for their newly formed Dualstar Productions to produce TV series and movies, develop other programming, and give ABC ties to the twins’ next record album and music-video collection. The agreement guarantees the twins a new series following their final season on “Full House,” which began when they were 9 months old, as well as a Halloween TV movie tentatively titled “Double, Double, Toil and Trouble.”

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A Big Farewell: David Letterman got a going-away present his last night on NBC: big ratings. Friday’s “Late Night,” with guest Tom Hanks and a surprise appearance by Bruce Springsteen, won roughly double the usual audience, according to preliminary Nielsen Media Research figures. Letterman racked up a hefty 7.4 rating and 27 share of audience. By contrast, the Friday before, Letterman drew a 3.6 rating and 18 share. Each ratings point equals 472,108 television households. If the results hold in final tabulations being released Thursday, Letterman more than doubled his usual viewership of about 3 million households.

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Double Protest: The National Italian American Foundation is upset about what it sees as “negative information” presented on TV. The group has asked CBS to change the title of its already started summer series “Johnny Bago” (because it sounds like Johnny Dago) and petitioned NBC to halt development of a series called “La Famiglia,” about a female Sicilian immigrant who becomes head of a crime syndicate. The group has met with officials at CBS and NBC but so far has had no impact on program decisions. “Bago” in the CBS series refers to the Winnebago RV driven by star Peter Dobson, a petty crook on the run.

STAGE

‘Joseph’ and the Amazing Gross: Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Broadway-bound “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” which just completed its 19-week run at the Pantages Theatre, has not only set a house record for the theater’s highest weekly gross, but has broken the record for the highest weekly gross in the history of legitimate theater in Los Angeles. The production grossed $941,574 for the week ending June 27, topping the previous record holder, “Les Miserables,” which brought in $835,178 at the Pantages for the week ending Jan. 2, 1993.

QUICK TAKES

Bruce Springsteen, 43, and wife Patti Scialfa, 36, are expecting their third child. They already have a 3-year-old son, Evan James, and a 1 1/2-year-old daughter, Jessica Rae. Scialfa, Springsteen’s former backup singer, has her first solo album due out July 13. . . . Rock star Pete Townshend, whose revamped 1970s the Who musical, “Tommy,” won five Tonys this year, is turning Ted Hughes’ classic children’s story about a metal giant into a musical. Townshend’s “The Iron Man” is set to premiere at London’s Young Vic theater in November. . . . Blues singer Wilson Pickett, 51, pleaded guilty Tuesday to reduced charges of assault in a New Jersey drunken driving accident in which he hit an 85-year-old pedestrian. Under the plea bargain, prosecutors will recommend about a year in jail, alcohol rehabilitation and community service. The “In the Midnight Hour” singer is also due in court next Wednesday on charges he was drunk when he drove across the lawn of his neighbor, Englewood, N.J., Mayor Donald Aronson, in 1991.