ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT REPORTS FROM THE TIMES, NEWS SERVICES AND THE NATION’S PRESS. MOVIES & TV

MovieFone Force--4 Million: Although there were no “Star Wars” sales figures released by distributor 20th Century Fox on Thursday, MovieFone Inc. said that 4 million people had used its telephone and Internet services since it began selling the “Phantom Menace” tickets at noon Wednesday. Of those users, 95% of tickets sold were for “Star Wars,” a company spokeswoman said, though she declined to disclose actual sales figures or how many of the 4 million users made purchases. However, the service’s phone lines were reportedly jammed in many major cities, and its Web site was slowed by a surge in use.

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Roddenberry’s Legacy Continues: Two new syndicated series based on works by the late “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry are being developed for a fall 2000 launch, with “Hercules” actor Kevin Sorbo set to star in one of the series. The programs, to be produced by Tribune Entertainment, are “Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda”--a time travel adventure set in millenniums past--and “Gene Roddenberry’s Starship”--set in a futuristic world in which a peaceful Earth is run by artists, scientists and teachers. Roddenberry’s widow, Majel Barrett Roddenberry, is actively involved with both projects.

POP/ROCK

Gone for a Year: Today marks the first anniversary of Frank Sinatra’s death, and among the tributes planned for ‘Ol Blue Eyes, radio station KLAC-AM (570) will air an hourlong special at 5 p.m. Saturday featuring concert recordings and a rare personal monologue by Sinatra remembering his early childhood and his showbiz start. Meanwhile, officials at the Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City expect the steady parade of fans who visit Sinatra’s grave to intensify this weekend. The cemetery has already had to re-sod the area around the singer’s modest grave, and tour buses visit the site daily. “They come from all over,” a groundskeeper said, “and a lot of them have his music playing in the car, so we hear him all day long.”

ART

Make a Night of It: In conjunction with this weekend’s round-the-clock final viewing for the L.A. County Museum of Art’s “Van Gogh’s Van Goghs” exhibition, the Museum of the Holocaust (across the street from LACMA at 6006 Wilshire Blvd.) will host continuous screenings of “The Diary of Anne Frank” beginning at 11 p.m. Saturday. Admission is $2, but free to those with ticket stubs from the Van Gogh exhibition’s final weekend.

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Christie’s Sale Results: Speaking of Van Gogh, the artist’s 1988 painting of a canal, “La Roubine du Roi,” fetched only $19.8 million at a Christie’s New York sale Wednesday night--less than the auction house’s presale low estimate of $20 million. The painting was nonetheless the top lot at Christie’s Impressionist and 19th century art spring sale, which took in a total of $65.9 million, within the auction house’s total presale estimate of $63 million to $89 million. Christie’s Chairman Christopher Burge said the sale indicated “a really healthy [art] market, and yet not a speculative market and one pushing prices to unsustainable levels.” The spring auction season got underway with a bang Monday, when a Cezanne painting fetched more than $60.5 million at Sotheby’s, setting a record for the artist and notching the fourth-highest price ever paid for a painting at auction.

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San Francisco Nets Kelly: In the latest of a series of moves to beef up its collection, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has acquired 22 works by Ellsworth Kelly from the collection of the artist, with funds provided by anonymous donors. Combined with the museum’s current holdings, the new acquisition will form the single most important grouping of Kelly’s work, a museum spokesperson said. The additions range from paintings done in the late 1940s to large-scale sculptures from the 1980s.

QUICK TAKES

Looking for a bigger opening-weekend box office bang, Warner Bros. has moved up the release of its big effects-driven summer film “Wild Wild West” to June 30, two days before the start of the July 4th holiday weekend. The film, which stars Will Smith and Kevin Kline as government agents assigned to thwart a presidential assassination, had been scheduled for release on July 2. . . . Kathie Lee Gifford is set to make her Broadway debut in November, filling in for Carol Burnett one night a week in Stephen Sondheim’s “Putting It Together.” Gifford begins her Tuesday night run Nov. 9. . . . Song-and-dance man Donald O’Connor, 73, is returning to the stage after a near-fatal bout with pneumonia in January. He’s set to resume performances May 28 at the Fabulous Palm Springs Follies, where he had been performing prior to his hospitalization. . . . KNBC-TV co-anchor Jess Marlow will receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame during 11:30 a.m. ceremonies today at 6420 Hollywood Blvd.