People

By Michele Orecklin

SLEEP DEPRIVED NO MORE

Having bidden BRYANT GUMBEL goodbye on his departure from morning television only five years ago, when he left NBC's Today, we may find it difficult to muster the necessary emotion to do so again. But try we must. Last week Gumbel announced he is leaving CBS's The Early Show, which he joined in 1999. "After more than 17 years of hosting a morning news program, I feel it's time for me to move on and do something else with my life," he said. One of the recently divorced Gumbel's endeavors will be to wed girlfriend Hilary Quinlan; he will also continue to act as host on Real Sports on hbo. Beyond that, little of his plans are known. Though its ratings have improved somewhat, The Early Show has languished in third place in its time slot, behind NBC and abc, drawing attention mainly when ousted contestants from the previous night's Survivor showed up for a debriefing. Gumbel's relationship with Katie Couric on Today was at times frosty, and he and Early Show co-host Jane Clayson never really cozied up either. No word yet on who will cozy up with Clayson next.

WHAT GOOD IS SITTING?

One can't turn on the television lately without hearing news of LIZA MINNELLI. Depending on one's point of view, this may or may not be cause for celebration. Days after her March wedding, Minnelli, 56, and her curiously well-preserved new husband David Gest, 48, thwarted a mugging on their honeymoon in London. Last week she opened her new show at the Royal Albert Hall, impressing critics by belting out standards and dancing energetically. But on the same day, she was named in a lawsuit brought by her stepmother Lee Anderson Minnelli, 94, who was married to Liza's father Vincente before his death in 1986. The elder woman's civil suit claims Liza sold the Beverly Hills home that Vincente left her in his will and fired the staff. The electricity was shut off in late March. Liza's people claim she paid the home's utility bills for years and that she offered to buy her stepmother a condominium but was rebuffed.

A HIDDEN FAN OF THE CLASSICS?

The lyrics to EMINEM's Kill You reflect his mercifully unique sensibility. In the song from his Grammy-winning album The Marshall Mathers LP, released in 2000, the eager-to-offend rapper fantasizes about raping his mother and killing women not related to him. The melody to Kill You, however, is being claimed by someone else. French jazz pianist and composer Jacques Loussier, whose works seem to draw more from Bach and Vivaldi than from John Wayne Gacy, has filed a copyright-infringement suit alleging that Kill You lifts portions of Loussier's 20-year-old song Pulsion. The Frenchman is seeking $10 million and the destruction of all Marshall Mathers LP CDs still on the market. Eminem representatives had no comment.

OFF THE COUCH

Has WOODY ALLEN finally become a party guy? The reclusive director, who has always kept away from award shows, made his first appearance at the Oscars last month when he introduced a montage of films shot in New York City. Now he has announced that he will attend the Cannes Film Festival in May to premiere his new movie, Hollywood Ending. His films have been at Cannes before, but Allen has not. "The French people have been so supportive and so nice to me over the years, and I've been invited so many times that I wanted to give something back to them by coming," he explained, sounding sunny and sociable. Maybe he is finally heeding his own advice: "Eighty percent of success is showing up."