PEOPLE

By MARTHA PICKERILL

SLEEPING LATE IS THE BEST REVENGE

Who could blame Good Morning America's ray of sunshine for feeling burned out after 17 years of morning chat? JOAN LUNDEN announced last week that she will leave the ABC wake-up show in September but will continue to contribute to other ABC News programs. Although rumor had it that she was sidelined because GMA has been whipped by NBC's Today in the ratings for a year and a half, the network brass said the choice was all hers. At the same time, recollections of Lunden's many interviews--and hairstyles--over the years quickly gave way to speculation about her replacement. The top contenders:

MORNING PERSON PLUSES MINUSES

ELIZABETH VARGAS Experience at all Rumors of All About GMA news anchor three networks. Eve-like rivalry Besides, she's already with Joan. Can sitting there! Lunden's fans learn to love her?

DEBORAH ROBERTS Worked her way up Wed to Al Roker of 20/20 through NBC's ranks; NBC's Today. No correspondent, ABC even got an Emmy precedent for spouses nomination for 1992 duking it out in the Olympics coverage. morning ratings war.

WILLOW BAY Might attract sports Not much industry GMA/Sunday fans (she co-hosts credibility. She co-anchor NBA Inside Stuff). started out as a Oh, and she's married model, after all, to ABC's president. not a newswoman.

CYNTHIA MCFADDEN A resume chock-full Can't quite see Prime Time Live of heavy-hitting, her whipping up an correspondent, ABC award-winning, egg-white omelette serious-journalist with Richard Simmons. stuff.

CONNIE CHUNG She's available That thing with Former CBS Evening (DreamWorks just Newt Gingrich's mom. News co-anchor canned her talk show with husband Maury Povich)--and likable.

QUEEN OF THE BEE

Quick, name a euonym for REBECCA SEALFON, 13, of Brooklyn, N.Y. If you said "spelling master," you'd be right, and if you said "highly nervous and eccentric spelling master," you'd be even righter. Sealfon correctly spelled euonym (meaning: an appropriate name) to win the 1997 Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee last week. The home-schooled whiz was such a wreck, she asked to wait offstage between spelling such words as deliquesce and sufflaminate. Her final nine-round spelldown with Prem Murthy Trivedi, 11, of Howell, N.J., ended after he put an extra l in the word cortile (that would be a courtyard). To Sealfon, whose shouted staccato spelling style was startling to the uninitiated, the whole experience must have seemed oneiric. (Look it up.)

YES, BUT HE'S BIG IN CHINA

Touring musicians generally go where they're appreciated, no matter how far. YANNI, the New Age composer of lush orchestral wallpaper, went to the other side of the world last week to become the first Western artist to perform in Beijing's Forbidden City. As his crew was setting up 200 tons of equipment among the centuries-old glazed terra cotta and tiles, Yanni had sculpture, not acoustics, on his mind. "My least favorite word in locations like this is 'whoops,'" said the voluminously maned musician. Now, Yanni says, he's done playing at monuments: great postcards, but too expensive. Of course, he did sell 7 million albums of the Acropolis concert and plans to produce a CD including the China shows. That'll pay for moving a few speakers.