Danielle Steel

DOROTHY SARNOFF, 94 Self-help pioneer Sweaty palms, nervous laughter, a Brooklyn accent, panic-induced silences. These were just a few of the image blemishes addressed by Dorothy Sarnoff, an opera singer and Broadway star who had a much bigger second career as one of the first, and most influential, image consultants, coaxing stage-worthy performances from business executives preparing a big speech, ambassadors on their way to foreign assignments and...

Danielle Steel and Scott Turow are all wet. So are more than a thousand books by other novelists after a fire sprinkler malfunctioned in the Towson library yesterday minutes before the library opened, drenching the fiction shelves. "It just went off, a huge rush of water," said librarian Joe Thompson, who was standing near the fiction section putting books onto shelves when the sprinkler erupted. "I just stared for the first couple seconds." Thompson and other workers sprang into action, ripping books from the shelves and grabbing wastebaskets to bail the mounting pools of water.

"Happy Days" are back on Nickelodeon. Meanwhile, Fox keeps trying to come up with a decent sitcom."The Fresh Prince of Bel Air" (8 p.m.-8: 30 p.m., WBAL, Channel 11) -- The casts of "Diff'rent Strokes" and "The Jeffersons" show up as Will Smith and Company say goodbye to prime time in this repeat of May's season- and series-ender. NBC."Melrose Place" (8 p.m.-9 p.m., WBFF, Channel 45) -- Richard isn't dead! Jake and Allison become a couple! Amanda and Peter keep on keeping on! Yep, the beautiful, nasty people are back for a fifth season, with two new regulars in tow: Rob Estes (Mr. Jodie Bissett in real-life)

The title of our film tonight is "Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina." If you're waiting for "Danielle Steel's Anna Karenina" or "Stephen King's Anna Karenina," please return to the lobby.Happily, "Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina" actually does hew closely, even reverently, to Leo Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina," arguably literature's greatest piece of romance writing. Perhaps, though, the film could have benefited from a little more Danielle Steel. Or at least a little more sex.Is that a sacrilege? Yes, but at the core of Tolstoy's 19th-century novel is a passion so surpassing, so searing, its consequences sunder lives every which way. Screenwriter and director Bernard Rose ("Immortal Beloved")

Every morning, around 5 a.m., before the sunlight splashes on the beige bedroom walls of the weathered farmhouse in Upperco, Charlene Miller stirs, yawns - and prays. Thank you, Lord, for helping me come through the night . She doesn't get up. Several hours later, she nudges her husband of 49 years. Fred Miller wakens grumbling, as usual. But the old Baltimore Colt lineman rises, circles the bed and kisses her gently on the cheek. Charlene stays put. Fred lumbers downstairs, rustles up breakfast and starts his chores around the 46-acre farm.

AMERICAN GIRLMary Cantwell.Random House.209 pages. $20."American Girl" is a joyous book. Author Mary Cantwell remembers her childhood in Bristol, R.I., a typical American town in the 1930s: "Bristol Harbor is enclosed by two claws, a big claw which is the town itself and a little claw called Poppasquash Point -- and sailboats dance on it in summer. Lobster boats plow through it all year round and so does the dumpy Prudence Island ferry."She reminds readers of the way we were -- Jack Benny on the radio, a white graduation dress that "falls like a cloud," the smell of saltwater, sachet and privet.

Actor Joaquin Phoenix says goodbye to film, hello to music Joaquin Phoenix says he's "not doing films anymore." He made the announcement Monday at a fundraising event for Paul Newman's camps for kids. Extra's Jerry Penacoli asked "Are you serious?" Phoenix answered, "Yeah. I'm working on my music. I'm done. I've been through that." Phoenix's rep confirmed the news to Extra with the response, "That is what he told me." The 34-year-old performer gave no further details on his career plans - but he has been working on a record for some time with Britain's The Charlatans, People reports on its Web site.

Los Angeles -- There just aren't enough courtroom dramas playing out on television these days, are there?The latest to be thrown into the mix is NBC's two-part movie "Trial: The Price of Passion," scheduled for 9 p.m. Sunday and Monday, and it's not all that interesting -- even for fiction.It's on a par with Danielle Steel for realism, but not quite as romantic -- a hokey, sex-filled soap opera based on improbable coincidences and cookie-cutter characters that's lifted only by a cast that includes Peter Strauss, Beverly D'Angelo, Jill Clayburgh and Ned Beatty.

For many Americans -- as well as in the preponderance of media -- the Persian Gulf war is understood in stark terms: Bad guy Saddam Hussein invaded the little country of Kuwait, the United Nations coalition drew a line in the sand, gave the new Hitler an ultimatum and finally went in and forced him out.OK, so why is there still savage fighting in Iraq? We hear about at least four factions -- Kurds, Shiites, Palestinians and Saddam's Revolutionary Guard. What's the difference between them?

Up for 51 straight Bugs Bunny cartoons? Who wouldn't be? So check out the Cartoon Network already."Renegade" (6 p.m.-7 p.m., WBFF, Channel 45) -- Stephen J. Cannell's production team has been responsible for a handful of TV mainstays, ranging from the classic ("The Rockford Files") to the camp classic ("The A-Team"). Here's a chance to see if he can act, as his character here becomes a U.S. marshal."It's Academic" (7 p.m.-7: 30 p.m., WJZ, Channel 13) -- Championship teams from Baltimore (Mount St. Joseph)