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Deals]
Not even kryptonite, it seems, can stop Christopher Reeve, 43. On May 23 the paralyzed actor signed with HBO to make his directorial debut on a one-hour AIDS drama, In the Gloaming; filming begins in October. After that the Superman star will voice the role of King Arthur in the Warner Bros. animated feature The Quest for Camelot and write his autobiography for Random House.

Lost It's retooling time for Tim Allen's new Disney comedy, Jungle2Jungle. A production assistant left several canisters of undeveloped film in the backseat of a New York City taxi May 21. Disney will reshoot the scenes if the film fails to turn up. Says a spokesman: ''It was an honest mistake.'' Still, the unnamed assistant was fired.

Recovering Keanu Reeves, 31, after breaking his leg in a May 26 motorcycle crash in L.A. According to his spokesperson, the Speed star collided with a car that had cut him off. He had minor surgery at Queen of Angels Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center. Reeves, currently between roles, will spend three to six weeks recuperating.

Births Paul Newman may have to start a line of baby food. Newman, 71, and wife Joanne Woodward, 66, are grandparents for the first time. Their daughter Lissy, 34, who's married to schoolteacher Raphael Elkind, gave birth to a son, Peter Stewart Elkind, May 18, in Westport, Conn.

Deaths Buck, the lovable pooch on Married...With Children, has gone to doggie heaven. The shaggy briard, paws down the smartest member of the Bundy clan, died May 25 at the ripe old age of 13 — 91 in dog years....

Singer Bradley Nowell, 28, of a suspected heroin overdose, May 25, in a San Francisco hotel room. Nowell was the lead singer of the ska-punk band Sublime....

Writer Joseph Mitchell, 87, of cancer, May 24, in New York City. The author of 1992's Up in the Old Hotel — a collection of meticulously observed, beautifully written magazine pieces — made his journalistic mark as a chronicler of the denizens of Gotham's seedier streets for The New Yorker, whose staff he joined in 1938....

Singer-songwriter Kevin Gilbert, 29, of what a spokesman termed accidental causes, May 18, at his Eagle Rock, Calif., home. Gilbert was best known for cowriting seven songs on Sheryl Crow's platinum album, Tuesday Night Music Club.