Entertainment news in brief

Ron Howard to direct Pavarotti documentary

LOS ANGELES — Following his successful Beatles documentary, Ron Howard is sticking with music. The Oscar-winner is directing a documentary about Luciano Pavarotti, the Italian tenor who rose to superstar status.

Howard’s Imagine Entertainment and White Horse Pictures announced the untitled project Thursday.

Pavarotti transcended opera to become a leading tenor. Howard says Pavarotti’s life is full of great drama and contradictions.

The tenor became a best-selling classical artist, with more than 100 million records sold, and he had the first classical album to reach No. 1 on the pop charts. He died from pancreatic cancer in 2007 at age 71.

Howard’s last film, “The Beatles: Eight Days A Week — The Touring Years,” won the Grammy Award for best music film.

Jerry Garcia’s guitar fetches $1.9 million

NEW YORK — A guitar that Jerry Garcia played everywhere from San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom to Egypt’s Great Pyramids fetched over $1.9 million at an auction on May 31.

The Grateful Dead frontman’s guitar — named Wolf — was sold at the Brooklyn Bowl, a bowling alley, restaurant and music venue. The sale price includes the buyer’s premium. The proceeds are earmarked for the Montgomery, Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center.

The guitar was owned by devoted Deadhead Daniel Pritzker, a philanthropist, musician and film director who bought the instrument in 2002 for $790,000.

The auctioneer says Wolf first appeared in a 1973 New York performance the Grateful Dead gave for the Hells Angels.

Garcia died in 1995.