Gillian Anderson

Deep in an industrial district here, the dank interior of a closed-down nightclub has been gutted and refitted with black plastic, chain link and neon lights for an episode of Fox's sexy, surreal TV series, "The X-Files." Detached mannequin limbs protrude from darkened walls to create disturbing images. The seedy, smoke-filled space is supposed to resemble a Hollywood Boulevard nightclub--the hangout for a contemporary coven of grunge vampires.

The truth is out there--and it's coming down here. "The X-Files," the half-billion-dollar TV series that just spun off a $60-million movie, is leaving its damp spawning grounds in Vancouver, B.C., after a half-decade and relocating in Los Angeles.

Gillian Anderson returns to American television Sunday night as Wallis Simpson in the "Masterpiece Classic" miniseries "Any Human Heart," based on William Boyd's sweeping novel of one man's life spanning the 20th century. The PBS series, also starring Matthew Macfadyen, Jim Broadbent, Hayley Atwell and Kim Cattrall, runs through Feb. 27. Wallis Simpson seems to be everywhere these days. She's also a character in "The King's Speech," although your portrayal of her in "Any Human Heart" was very different.

The trouble with attempting to adapt any novel by Charles Dickens into a three-hour miniseries (a mini miniseries?) is that even the best, cleverest screenwriter will be forced to boil the story down to its essential plot. And though Dickens did not shirk on plot, deliriously crisscrossing fistfuls of them as if each book were an unending game of cat's cradle, action is not what defined his work. God, they say, is in the details, and so is Charles Dickens, in the evocation of place, the palpable rise of mood and, most important, the creation of characters so freighted with eccentricity as to be unbelievable but so finely drawn that they live and breathe nonetheless.

Through his acclaimed autobiographical films, most notably "Distant Voices, Still Lives," England's Terence Davies has demonstrated a knack for bringing the past alive to disclose pain and treachery beneath a seductively evocative surface. He proves well-suited to bring to the screen "The House of Mirth," a devastating expose of the cruelty and hypocrisy of high society a century ago.

Mavis Leno, wife of "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno, will chair a March 29 program at the Directors Guild of America that aims to shed light on human rights abuses against women in Afghanistan. The event--to be written, directed and produced by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason and Harry Thomason--aims to bring exposure to what organizers call a system of "gender apartheid" by the ruling Taliban regime.

Gillian Anderson, Delta Burke, Drew Carey and Armistead Maupin are among the celebrities scheduled to perform in the second annual "A Cracked Christmas" celebration, Dec. 12 at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles (4401 W. 8th St.). Additional scheduled performers include Teri Garr, Ryan Stiles, Kathy Kinney, Paris Barclay and Judy Gold. The event's committee members include Ellen DeGeneres, Anne Heche and Camryn Manheim. The 7 to 10 p.m.

BCBG Max Azria, the Los Angeles-based clothing and accessory manufacturer, has announced its purchase of the majority interest in the French fashion house of Herve Leger. The sale marks the first time an American company has acquired a French designer-couturier. Leger, who showed his first collection under his own label in 1992, became best known for his sexy "bandage dresses," so named because they were constructed of bands of elasticized fabric.