Hollywood Digest

HONORS FOR DUSTIN HOFFMAN

The Costume Designers Guild will honor Dustin Hoffman with its first-ever Distinguished Actor Award at the upcoming Fifth Annual CDG Awards in Beverly Hills.

CDG President Deborah Nadoolman said Hoffman was being recognized for a body of work that includes two Oscar-winning performances -- for "Kramer vs. Kramer" (1979) and "Rain Man" (1988).

"From 'The Graduate' through his great performances in 'Midnight Cowboy,' 'Little Big Man, 'All the President's Men,' 'Tootsie,' 'Lenny' and dozens of other films," said Nadoolman, "and from his distinguished work on Broadway and TV that included a Drama Desk and Emmy Award for 'Death of a Salesman,' Hoffman has shown himself to be a true American icon -- an actor for the ages."

The guild will present awards on March 16 honoring costume designers in two feature film categories -- contemporary and period/fantasy.

The nominees in the contemporary category are: "About A Boy," Joanna Johnston; "About Schmidt," Wendy Chuck; "Igby Goes Down," Sarah Edwards; "Unfaithful," Ellen Mirojnick: and "White Oleander," Susie DeSanto.

The nominees in the period/fantasy category are: "Chicago," Colleen Atwood; "Frida," Julie Weiss; "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers," Ngila Dickson; and "Road to Perdition," Albert Wolsky.

The guild will also present its Career Achievement for Film Award to Ann Roth. One of Hollywood's leading costume designers for nearly four decades, Roth has worked on such movie classics as "Midnight Cowboy" (1969), "Coming Home" (1978), "Silkwood" (1983) and "The English Patient" (1996). She was nominated for the Oscar for "Places in the Heart" (1994) and "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (1999), and won for "The English Patient."

More recently, she designed the costumes for the 2002 releases "Signs," "Adaptation" and "The Hours," and for the upcoming Civil War drama "Cold Mountain."

STARS COME OUT FOR OSCARS

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Frank Pierson and actress Marisa Tomei will announce nominees for the 75th Academy Awards next Tuesday.

Tomei is an Oscar winner herself. She won for Best Supporting Actress in 1993 for "My Cousin Vinny." She was nominated in the same category last year for "In the Bedroom."

NBC'S BIG OLYMPIC PLANS

NBC has announced plans to present round-the-clock coverage of the 2004 Olympic Games from Athens, Greece.

The company said its five networks -- NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo and Telemundo -- will offer unprecedented coverage of every one of the 28 Summer Olympic sports. Telemundo's Spanish-language broadcast will provide the first exclusively non-English language Olympic broadcast in U.S. television history.

NBC Sports and Olympics Chairman Dick Ebersol said the networks would provide more than 800 hours of coverage from Athens -- nearly double the 441 hours of coverage from Sydney in 2000.

"Beginning with the first day of competition from Athens -- Saturday, Aug. 14, 2004 -- for the first time in the history of U.S. Olympic television, we will provide 24-hour-a-day coverage," said Ebersol. "We are committed to showcasing the athletes of the United States and the world in a way that has never been seen before."

CANDICE BERGEN RETURNING TO TV

Emmy-winning "Murphy Brown" star Candice Bergen will star in "Footsteps," a CBS TV movie based in a play by Ira Levin ("Deathtrap," "No Time for Sergeants").

The Hollywood Reporter said veteran director John Badham ("Saturday Night Fever") will direct Bergen in the story of a best-selling suspense novelist who gets caught up in a real-life crime story when two men -- one trying to kill her, the other trying to save her -- show up at her remote beachfront house.

BRINGING ROALD DAHL BACK TO BIG SCREEN

Disney has plans to make a movie based on Roald Dahl's illustrated children's book "The Twits."

According to a report in Daily Variety, the screenplay will be written by John Cleese ("Fierce Creatures," "A Fish Called Wanda"") and Kirk De Micco ("Quest for Camelot"). Dahl's book, with illustrations by Quentin Blake, introduced readers to Mr. and Mrs. Twit -- an obnoxious couple dedicated to the nastiest behavior they can manage, until the Muggle-Wump monkeys and the Roly-Poly bird cook up a nasty surprise for them.

Other Dahl titles that have been adapted for the big screen include "Matilda," "James and the Giant Peach" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."

SAG, AFTRA READY TO MERGE?

According to a report in The Los Angeles Times, officials of two major entertainment unions are near a deal to merge.

The paper said that the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists -- which have been talking about merging off and on since 1937 -- are almost ready to announce a proposal to combine their members under one umbrella, without a full-scale merger.

Citing union sources, the Times said union officials will propose bringing the 150,000 SAG and AFTRA members together as part of one organization, which would be divided into three autonomous divisions representing actors, broadcasters and recording artists.

The boards of both unions are expected to take up the issue at a meeting on Saturday.