PEOPLE WATCHThrough With Hugh?: British actor Hugh...

PEOPLE WATCH

Through With Hugh?: British actor Hugh Grant and his partner, Elizabeth Hurley, are reportedly ending their eight-year romance in the aftermath of Grant’s arrest with a Hollywood prostitute. The Sunday Mirror newspaper in London cited highly placed sources at cosmetics company Estee Lauder, where actress-model Hurley, 29, has a $1.6-million contract. Company executives quoted by the paper insisted that Estee Lauder put no pressure on Hurley to break up with Grant.

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About Hugh, Too: Hugh Grant will not have to take an AIDS test if convicted of engaging in lewd conduct with a prostitute, contrary to earlier reports. “Not only would there not be an AIDS test for a lewd conduct conviction, it would be prohibited for a judge to order one because of state privacy laws,” L.A. city attorney’s spokesman Mike Qualls said, noting that he was wrong when he said the opposite last week. Grant would still have to take an AIDS education class if convicted. . . . Meanwhile, the publicity surrounding Grant’s arrest has boosted video sales of one of his little-known TV movies. Orders for “Our Sons” have jumped 30%, distributor Atlantic Entertainment said. “Our Sons,” starring Grant, Julie Andrews and Ann-Margret, is about two mothers and their gay sons. Grant plays a man whose companion is dying of AIDS.

LEGAL FILE

Baby-Sitter Sues: The baby-sitter who says she had sex with Kelsey Grammer when she was 15 is suing him for $20 million. Her family filed suit last week in Phoenix, saying the actor gathered embarrassing information to keep them quiet in case they tried to publicize the relationship and falsely depicted them as driven by greed and spite. The young woman says she had sex with the star of NBC’s “Frasier” in Arizona and in New Jersey two years ago, when she was his daughter’s baby-sitter. He was not charged after investigations in both states. Grammer has denied her claim and called it attempted extortion. “It saddens me that for whatever reason this issue continues to be raised in a way that is hurtful to me, my family and, I believe, to the [girl’s] family,” Grammer said of the suit.

TELEVISION

Play Ball: ESPN announced it will launch a weekly animated prime-time series about two sports fanatics who host a show on a fictitious all-sports network. “Hoyt ‘n Andy Sportsbender” will begin airing on the real sports network in November. On the show, couch potatoes Hoyt and Andy will take potshots at the entire world of sports--including ESPN.

POP/ROCK

Song Stirs Distress: The rock group Filter insists its song, “Hey Man Nice Shot,” pays tribute to the former Pennsylvania official who killed himself at a news conference. But R. Budd Dwyer’s widow, Joanne, is upset about the song and said the family plans to file a strong protest with Filter’s record company, Reprise Records of Burbank. The song, which doesn’t name Pennsylvania’s former treasurer and only vaguely refers to his public suicide, was meant as “an expression of the guts and determination of a person standing up for what they believe is right,” band members Richard Patrick and Brian Leisgang said in a statement. Dwyer committed suicide in 1987, a day before he was scheduled to appear before a federal judge for sentencing in a bribery-conspiracy scandal.

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The End of a Fab Store: The Liverpool music store where a young John Lennon got his first guitar and the newly formed Beatles bought instruments on credit is closing. Hessy’s Music Center, a tourist shrine in the Beatles’ home city, will close this year because the building is being turned into a clothing store. Hessy’s, which opened in 1934, is around the corner from the Cavern Club, where the Beatles used to play in the 1960s.

MUSIC

Pavarotti and Papa: Luciano Pavarotti and his father, Fernando, spent the weekend taking part in the Llangollen festival in north Wales, the same festival that set Luciano on the road to operatic superstardom 40 years ago. Pavarotti and his father sang at the 1955 Llangollen festival as members of a choir from their hometown of Modena, Italy. The choir’s first-place victory in the competition inspired the 19-year-old Pavarotti to give up his planned career as a teacher and become a professional tenor. “When people ask what is the most memorable day in my life, I always say it was when I won this competition,” Pavarotti said Friday with his arm around his father, who is now 84, as they addressed the crowd at the festival. The Pavarottis were scheduled to sing together with other members of the Modena choir to end the festival Sunday night.

QUICK TAKES

Jerry Lewis will hold his annual Labor Day muscular dystrophy telethon in Los Angeles instead of Las Vegas this year. . . . A bird forced Rod Stewart’s jet to land shortly after takeoff in Stockholm on Friday. Stewart, who’d performed in Goteborg, Sweden, was leaving for England when a bird was sucked into one engine of his twin-engine BAE Hawker Siddely 125 executive jet.