Sandy Veith

A Los Angeles Superior Court jury on Monday awarded $7.3 million to a producer who sued MCA Inc. alleging that a script he wrote while working at the company in the early 1980s was used as the basis for the current CBS show "Northern Exposure," his lawyer said. Sandy Veith, whose credits include writing for such shows as "The Jeffersons" and "Good Times," had alleged that "Northern Exposure" stemmed from an idea he developed for a show called "Coletta" when he worked at MCA from 1981 to 1986.

It's a cynical credo of the screenwriting world that there are only so many basic stories (seven is the number, according to some). Certainly, in the world of television, everything starts to sound the same. This is, after all, the season with two drama shows about doctors, both set in Chicago. But sometimes things seem a little too similar for a writer's comfort.

It's a cynical credo of the screenwriting world that there are only so many basic stories (seven is the number, according to some). Certainly, in the world of television, everything starts to sound the same. This is, after all, the season with two drama shows about doctors, both set in Chicago. But sometimes things seem a little too similar for a writer's comfort.

A Los Angeles Superior Court jury on Monday awarded $7.3 million to a producer who sued MCA Inc. alleging that a script he wrote while working at the company in the early 1980s was used as the basis for the current CBS show "Northern Exposure," his lawyer said. Sandy Veith, whose credits include writing for such shows as "The Jeffersons" and "Good Times," had alleged that "Northern Exposure" stemmed from an idea he developed for a show called "Coletta" when he worked at MCA from 1981 to 1986.

OPERA And Then There Was One?: British Culture Secretary Chris Smith has proposed that the English National Opera's London Coliseum theater be shut down and the famed Royal Opera House be given a more populist name--Covent Garden. The plan--backed by Britain's ruling Labor Party--would leave the British capital with only one opera house (Paris, by comparison, has five), with the National Opera sharing the renamed facility with the Royal Opera and Royal Ballet.

The art of the deal . . . The plastic surgeon to the stars . . . A new $10-million man ARTFUL DEALINGS: The two paintings--one a Rembrandt--had long been thought lost or destroyed by the Nazis. But when the masterworks mysteriously surfaced for sale in late 1994, art expert Ernest J. T. Martin says he gladly answered the call to authenticate and help sell them. Now Martin, who specializes in finding lost, missing or stolen art, has filed a lawsuit seeking $57.