Characters

LAKEPORT, Calif. - Brawny and mustachioed, Francisco "Frank" Rivero strides down Main Street in this resort town, wearing his badge, gun and pine green uniform, headed for radio station KPFZ. It's time for another hour of "Straight Talk With the Sheriff," when Rivero takes on his critics. At any given time, they include the chairman of the Lake County Board of Supervisors, the district attorney, motorcycle gangs, an army of marijuana growers and both local newspapers. He's been called a thug, a liar, a bully, a cowboy, and the Cuban John Wayne for his swaggering brand of justice.

WASHINGTON - The news came this week that movie director Tony Scott had committed suicide by leaping from a Los Angeles bridge, and many of the remembrances have focused on his most famous action movies, including Top Gun , and his kinetic visual style. But as interesting as how he told his stories is the people they were about. Scott frequently directed black stars, including Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop II , Wesley Snipes in The Fan , Will Smith in Enemy of the State , and his frequent leading man Denzel Washington in Man on Fire , Deja Vu , his remake of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, and Unstoppable . And while action movies with male main characters made up much of his career, Scott's movies also included a number of fascinating, unsettling roles for women.

It's time to say goodbye to Brenda Leigh Johnson's sing-song, Georgia-scented " thank you! " The LAPD interrogator par excellence played with delightful quirk, brilliant intelligence, and disarming cunning by Kyra Sedgwick will take her leave on the season finale of TNT's The Closer at 9 p.m. Monday. The episode also will transition viewers to the series premiere of TNT's spin-off, Major Crimes , at 10 p.m. Set in the same squadroom, Major Crimes retains most of the Closer regulars we've grown to love, or in the case of Capt.

NEW YORK - Nickelodeon's hit show iCarly made Jennette McCurdy a star, and although the show will have its series finale in November, the 20-year-old doesn't have to worry about what comes next. The network has tapped McCurdy and actress Ariana Grande to star in a spin-off tentatively titled Sam & Cat . The series will follow the girls' characters, Sam Puckett from iCarly and Cat Valentine from Victorious , as they become roommates and start a baby-sitting business. Sam & Cat will be produced by Dan Schneider, who is behind Nickelodeon shows iCarly, Victorious, Zoey 101 , and Drake & Josh . "I couldn't be under a better person's wing, so I'm really happy about that decision," McCurdy said in a recent interview.

Norman Alden, 87, a character actor who played a soda jerk in Back to the Future , a cameraman in Tim Burton's Ed Wood and the title role in cult director Richard C. Sarafian's first film, Andy , died Friday in Los Angeles. His death was confirmed by Linda Thieben, his partner of more than 30 years. Mr. Alden acted in television and film for 50 years, appearing regularly on shows such as The Legend of Wyatt Earp , The Untouchables , and My Three Sons . His television career led to parts in films, including Tora!

R.G. Armstrong Jr., 95, known for playing sheriffs, outlaws, and other macho roles, died Friday at his home in Studio City, Calif. His five-decade career took off with guest spots on virtually all the popular western television shows of the 1950s and '60s, including Have Gun - Will Travel and Gunsmoke. After meeting the writer and director Sam Peckinpah on the set of his 1960 series, The Westerner , Mr. Armstrong became a regular in his films, playing a Christian fundamentalist in Ride the High Country , a minister in Major Dundee , and a deputy sheriff in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Departing from westerns, he also had roles in The Great White Hope and Arnold Schwarzenegger's Predator.

The only thing I hate about Bruce Graham's new play, Mr. Hart & Mr. Brown , is that I can't really tell you much about it without giving away its several surprises. And if you see it at People's Light & Theatre Company, where it's getting a remarkable world premiere and is an engrossing story for a summer's night, you shouldn't, either. Let everyone be as pleasantly surprised as you'll be. Graham, the prolific Philadelphia-based playwright who gets better with each new work, takes Mr. Hart & Mr. Brown straight from a footnote to American history - like many footnotes, quirky and hard-to-believe and about a character well-known for a time and now completely faded from the national psyche.

Istanbul Passage By Joseph Kanon Atria Books. 480 pp. $26- Reviewed by Rhonda Dickey I t's just after World War II, and alliances are shifting. The former friends are suspect; the former enemies may now be worth cultivating. These shifting alliances are at the heart of this thriller, which shows once again that well-crafted popular fiction can have characters and stories that resonate. Leon Bauer, an expatriate American working in Istanbul in the tobacco business, has been helping the U.S. war effort in a discreet way, first carrying "papers they couldn't put in the diplomatic pouch," then more.

Kenny Calloway was the big guy with a golden retriever riding on the back of his motorcycle. You wouldn't suspect he was on his way to do his duty as a judge, dispensing justice with an even hand while Galileo waited patiently on the bike. Needless to say, Kenny Calloway was not your ordinary jurist, or your ordinary lawyer, or your ordinary anything else. Ordinary was not an adjective you would have applied to the very large (6-2, 350 pounds) character who served, charmed and amused the people of Wildwood, N.J., and its environs as a counselor who championed the little people, a municipal court judge in Wildwood, Middle Township and Sea Isle City, and a devoted traveler who rode his Honda Gold Wing 1800cc motorcycle across the country, often with his wife Janet on the back.

THE NEWSROOM. 10 p.m. Sunday, HBO.   TOWARD THE end of the first season of "The West Wing," there's an episode in which President Jed Bartlet (Martin Sheen) and his staff decide it's time to stop being the kind of ineffectual power players Ed Rendell would call "wusses. " "Let Bartlet Be Bartlet" became a rallying cry not just for the characters but for their creator, Aaron Sorkin, who wasn't so much interested in making a drama about how things worked in Washington as he was in showing how they could work.