The Beat

Touchy, touchy. After the New York Daily News reported that Tiger Woods had invited Miss Universe Lara Dutta—a.k.a. Derek Jeter's main squeeze—to last Saturday's Tiger Jam IV benefit concert in Las Vegas, Woods's p.r. machine went into siege mode. Initially, a publicist for the event told SI Dutta had never been invited. Later the story changed: Dutta had been invited, but by folks from Tiger's foundation, not by Woods himself. Then an angry publicist abruptly limited SI's access to the event and referred to an SI reporter as a "crack baby." Hey, at least it was all in the name of charity....

Get out your hankies: ABC has announced a remake of its landmark study in male bonding, Brian's Song. The mere mention of the 1971 telepic, which starred Billy Dee Williams as Bears halfback Gale Sayers and James Caan as his doomed teammate, Brian Piccolo (below), can reduce grown men to tears. The new version, scheduled to air as a Wonderful World of Disney special in the fall, will star Mekhi Phifer (Shaft) as Sayers and Sean Maher (The Street) as Piccolo. "We're going to tell a deeper story by fleshing out their family lives," says co-executive producer Neil Meron....

Also in the dredging-up-an-oldie department, Universal just finished shooting Slap Shot 2, a sequel to the 1977 Paul Newman hockey classic. The new movie, tentatively scheduled for release next January, stars Stephen Baldwin as the Chiefs' player-coach and Gary Busey as the team's owner. Returning as the bespectacled Hanson brothers are Dave Hanson and Jeff and Steve Carlson. "This movie's going to do for Stephen Baldwin what the original did for Paul Newman," says Jeff Carlson. "It's going to catapult him to stardom. Not only did we teach him to skate, we also taught him to act." Adds Hanson, "After 24 years of rehearsing we've fine-tuned ourselves. We're going to put Gladiator to shame. We should be talking to designers for Oscar night."