Revisiting the Class of ’96

Here’s how last year’s Faces to Watch shaped up by year’s end:

MOVIES

Edward Burns: Fox released the actor-writer-director’s “She’s the One,” which critics generally found amiable but derivative of his debut, “The Brothers McMullen.” The newer film cost twice as much but took in less. He and his brother Brian signed a deal to develop a TV series for ABC, and he has written a new movie script he plans to film in ’97.

DreamWorks SKG: 1996 saw a lot of deals made but no movie product. This year will see high-profile films like the George Clooney vehicle “The Peacemaker” and Steven Spielberg’s “Amistad.”

Matthew McConaughey: Few faces were as watched as his; after the overheated Hollywood hype machine landed McConaughey on the cover of Vanity Fair (and in stories just about everywhere else), he succeeded with critics in the $100-million hit “A Time to Kill,” then landed a Warner Bros. production deal.

Tom Rothman: The president of 20th Century Fox film production oversaw the year’s biggest movie, “Independence Day,” as well as the box-office success “William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet” and the prestigious “The Crucible.” Though he also presided over disappointments like “Chain Reaction” and “Down Periscope,” he put into production the 1997 “event” films “Titanic,” “Speed 2” and “Alien Resurrection.”

Stacey Snider: Extricating herself from the Sony morass, Snider left TriStar late in the year (after shepherding the desperately needed hit “Jerry Maguire”) to join her former boss Marc Platt at Universal, where she will be co-president of production.

Kate Winslet: Strong reviews for her performances in “Jude” and “Hamlet,” though the films got mixed reception. Next: blockbuster time in James Cameron’s “Titanic.”

THEATER

Savion Glover: The dancer opened on Broadway with “Bring in ‘da Noise, Bring in ‘da Funk” and won a Tony for his choreography.

Larry Hart: “Sisterella” opened to acclaim and eight NAACP awards, but plans to move the musical to Broadway seemed to dematerialize.

Doug Wright: “Quills,” his fascinating play about the Marquis de Sade, came to Los Angeles, unfortunately in a disappointing production directed by Adrian Hall, with a miscast Howard Hesseman as the Marquis.

TELEVISION

Barry Diller: His Silver King Communications Inc. bought Home Shopping Network in a stock swap worth $1.26 billion, but he kept his plans to build a new TV network under wraps.

Leslie Moonves: His first prime-time schedule as president of CBS Entertainment included big-name, big-budget talent deals and has carried the network from third to second in overall household ratings, though CBS continues to have an audience profile that is less desirable to advertisers than that of the other networks. Insiders say Moonves’ energy has boosted morale at the network, proving CBS can “get back in the game.”

Kristen Wilson: The TV series in which she was co-starring, “Matt Waters,” was canceled, but she had a prominent role in the film “Bulletproof” and appeared in “Girl 6” and “Get on the Bus.”

MUSIC

Renee Fleming: We called the soprano “virtually perfect” as Desdemona opposite Placido Domingo in the Met’s televised “Otello”; her debut at Bayreuth earned her strong but not rave reviews.

Jennifer Larmore: She brought her “luscious” mezzo soprano voice to no fewer than four venues in the Southland in 1996, from an L.A. Opera debut in “L’Italiana in Algeri” to her West Coast recital debut under the auspices of UCLA. She sang at the Olympics and had a significant new recording presence.

Mark Morris: His staging of Gluck’s “Orfeo ed Euridice” received mixed reviews (we called it “cool, formal, decorative and undramatic”), but his dance company attracted prestigious bookings, including one at the Orange County Performing Arts Center next April.

DANCE

Pina Bausch: At nearly four hours, her Neo-Expressionist epic “Nur Du” (Only You) for Tanztheater Wuppertal represented a spectacular gamble for venues such as the Music Center, but it proved, in our words, “a major event--a fragile, intuitive, humanist vision.”

Donald Byrd: Notwithstanding mixed reviews, “The Harlem Nutcracker,” Byrd’s African American spin on the 1892 Christmas classic, became the ’96 yuletide novelty in Southern California dance, with its score (partly by Duke Ellington, partly arranged in Ellington style) generating lots of interest on its own.

ART

John McLaughlin: A critically lauded retrospective of his paintings organized by the Laguna Art Museum began a national tour.

Next Director of LACMA: Ending a 2 1/2-year search in March, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art hired Graham W.J. Beal, 48, formerly director of the Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha.

Lari Pittman: In balloting by the American section of the International Assn. of Art Critics, the artist’s mid-career survey at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art was voted No. 2 among best museum shows outside New York--second to “Cezanne” at the Philadelphia Museum.

POP MUSIC

Alison Krauss: She didn’t release an album in ‘96, but she picked up two Grammys and produced the Cox Family’s acclaimed album “Just When We’re Thinking It’s Over.” Her next album is due in the first quarter of ’97.

Rage Against the Machine: Rage avoided the sales drop-off afflicting many well-established rock bands, reaching the 1.5-million mark with its second album, “Evil Empire,” while keeping its politics radical.

Tony Rich: Rich’s “Nobody Knows” was a Top 10 hit, helping his debut album sell more than 700,000 copies.

JAZZ

Wynton Marsalis: The trumpeter’s jazz program at Lincoln Center was elevated to equal status with the classical music, dance, theater and opera programs. Marsalis’ 26-part radio series, “Making the Music” and his four-part PBS television series, “Marsalis on Music,” were granted Peabody Awards. And his jazz oratorio “Blood in the Fields,” scheduled for the Music Center Jan. 30, received its New York premiere.

Gonzalo Rubalcaba: It was primarily a performance year for Rubalcaba, whose career has not yet begun to take off with the prominence that his playing appears to warrant. But local club and concert appearances confirmed that he is one of the most gifted jazz pianists to emerge in the ‘90s.

Cassandra Wilson: The singer’s album “New Moon Daughter” was a great success, reaching jazz and pop audiences and performing well on the jazz charts from the time of its release in the spring. In December it was picked as the album of the year by Time magazine and as one of 1996’s most important albums by the New York Times.

RADIO

Don Buchwald: Howard Stern’s agent reports that he has added 15 to 20 radio markets for his superstar radio client and talks vaguely about more. Stern, whose movie “Private Parts” comes out in the spring, is not Buchwald’s sole client: Syndicated host Tom Leykis has a TV deal in development and a book coming out in 1997. And Buchwald allows that there’ll shortly be “an announcement” about Stern sidekick Robin Quivers.

Ray Suarez: His National Public Radio show “Talk of the Nation,” heard locally on KPCC-FM (89.3), lost one of its 99 outlets but gained in popularity elsewhere. He picked up 100,000 listeners and is now heard by 1.2 million people.

TECHNOLOGY

Steve Jobs: After becoming an overnight billionaire in 1995 with the public offering of Pixar, the computer-animation studio that created Disney’s “Toy Story,” Jobs saw much of his paper wealth evaporate in 1996 as Pixar’s stock price plunged from $40 to $14. But Pixar is hard at work on its second movie, “Bugs,” due out in 1998. And Jobs made a huge deal with the company where he started it all, when Apple Computer bought his Next Software and hired him as a part-time advisor.

COMEDY

Jonathan Katz: The comic and animated star of Comedy Central’s “Dr. Katz: Licensed Therapist” has landed a recurring role on “Ink,” but a computer animated series he developed for DreamWorks didn’t make it onto ABC’s fall lineup. However, there’s one sign that his “Dr. Katz” character has made its mark on pop culture: He has his own 1997 calendar.