Jason Robards

NEW YORK - Morticians have occasion to think often and long about death. By association, so do those who play morticians - in this case, Peter Krause, the star of television's Six Feet Under. Four seasons into the HBO drama, Krause, with his seductive forelock of brown hair cascading toward an eyebrow, says it was a complete surprise to have found himself playing Nate Fisher, brooding scion of a Los Angeles funeral home family whose strange adventures make up the plot of Alan Ball's hit series.

Sandy Dennis, who as a young actress in the 1960s entranced Broadway and Hollywood with performances that won her two Tony awards and an Academy Award, died on Monday at her home in Westport, Conn. She was 54.Although the exact cause of her death was not known, Ms. Dennis had been fighting a long battle with cancer, said Doris Elliott, a longtime friend. Ms. Dennis's death was confirmed by a spokesman for the Lewis Funeral Home in Westport.Ms. Dennis, born and reared in Nebraska and blessed with an aura of appealing fragility, came to New York at age 18 and within a decade had fashioned a string of outstanding performances, and had earned the awards to prove it.After making her movie debut in 1961 in a supporting role in "Splendor in the Grass," she won a Tony award in 1963 for her performance, as a social worker, opposite Jason Robards in "A Thousand Clowns," and a year later, she won another Tony as the slightly off-beat mistress of a tycoon, played by Gene Hackman, in "Any Wednesday."

Near the end of the first act of "Park Your Car in Harvard Yard," there's a deliciously cathartic scene in which the live-in housekeeper for a cantankerous retired schoolteacher finally tells him off to his face -- a safe proposition since his hearing aid has given out.Israel Horovitz' new bittersweet comedy -- which opened a pre-Broadway run at the Mechanic Theatre last night -- is about two strong-willed New Englanders of opposite temperaments and cultural...

The advice for TV tonight is easy: Get cable or get going. Once again, broadcast TV essentially is taking Saturday night off.* "Rain Man." (8 p.m.-11 p.m., WJZ, Channel 13) -- This Saturday night space on ABC was reserved for major league baseball -- but, with the strike still in full swing (the only swinging going on in the sport at the moment), the network sends in designated hitter "Rain Man" instead. Consider it another baseball "Rain" delay. ABC repeat.* "Tales From the Crypt." (11 p.m.-midnight, WBFF, Channel 45)

Herb Gardner, 68, an award-winning playwright whose credits include A Thousand Clowns and I'm Not Rappaport, died of lung disease Wednesday at his home in New York City. A Thousand Clowns, his first play, opened on Broadway in 1962. It was nominated for a Tony and was made into a film in 1965. Jason Robards starred in both versions, and Mr. Gardner's film adaptation of the play was nominated for an Academy Award. I'm Not Rappaport, the story of an 81-year-old left-winger named Nat who spends his days on a bench in Central Park with his foil Midge, debuted in 1984 in Seattle and won a Tony Award in 1986 for best play.

WASHINGTON -- Benjamin C. Bradlee, the editor who transformed the Washington Post into one of the nation's best papers and guided it through Watergate, is retiring as executive editor.He will be succeeded by Managing Editor Leonard Downie, who rose through the editing ranks of the paper after a career as an investigative reporter.Bradlee's retirement is effective Sept. 2, one week after his 70th birthday.Bradlee will become a vice president of the Post and a director of the Washington Post Co., which owns Newsweek magazine, television stations and other newspaper properties.

THE CAPITOL Hill newspaper Roll Call ran a fake full page advertisement Thursday for a new holiday season movie.The copy says, "First there was 'The Magnificent Seven,' then 'The Dirty Dozen,' now the U.S. Senate in conjunction with the U.S. League of Savings Institutions presents a Constituent Services Inc. production of 'The Keating Five.' "The casting, by Roll Call's Craig Winneker and others on the staff, is inspired. There's Ed Harris as John Glenn, of course. He played Glenn in "The Right Stuff."

In a persistent irony of television news, most broadcasts fill their air time with what amounts to visual filler, comprising footage taken long after news has happened.Thus, more often than not we see accident scenes only after the accident, with people milling about, body bags being loaded into ambulances and lots and lots of "talking heads" delivering "sound bites."Ah, but now the average viewer can make television with a compact camcorder. And the popularity of ABC's "America's Funniest Home Videos" made it inevitable that newsier home videos would get their own show.

On The Weekend Watch:A DAY IN THE LIFE . . . -- That's the approach taken tonight by a special edition of "The Mayor's Show" (at 10:30, Channel 54). The nicely edited half-hour follows Mayor Kurt Schmoke through a well-chosen busy, busy day: March 19, the day after the City Council proposed its controversial, racially charged new redistricting plan. This monthly series is co-produced by the mayor's cable office, so the portrait is hardly critical. Indeed, clips could go into TV spots for Schmoke's re-election campaign.

It's often a motley crew that the trustees at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts select as their annual Center Honors recipients. The newly announced list sends the mind reeling at the dinner party possibilities: Chuck Berry, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Placido Domingo, Angela Lansbury and Clint Eastwood. The five have been chosen as recipients of the 23rd annual Center Honors for the "unique and extremely valuable contributions they have made to the cultural life of our nation," Kennedy Center Chairman James A. Johnson said in a prepared statement.