THE BEST PEOPLE OF 1993

1 Michael Jackson. His troubles have made l'affaire Woody a quaint and distant memory. The year began well for Jackson -- a performance at Clinton's pre- Inaugural gala, a Super Bowl half-time spectacle, a TV chat with Oprah that conveyed to tens of millions the impression that he was just a regular guy who was dating Brooke Shields -- but then came the summer of disaster. Charges of child molestation, criminal inquiries, an abandoned world tour, lawsuits, drug addiction, a bizarre disappearance and mysterious return have brought real- world, grownup horror to the owner of Neverland Ranch -- horror he eventually had to confront. In a four-minute televised statement broadcast around the world from Neverland last week, Jackson, voice quivering, called the sexual-abuse allegations ''disgusting,'' declared his innocence and said, ''I do try to be Godlike in my heart.''

2 Julia Roberts Emerging unscathed from a rumor-filled pause in her career, Roberts, last seen in Hook in 1991, returned to the screen in The Pelican Brief, which opened huge in December. Earlier, in a spectacularly surprising and appealing move, she wed Lyle Lovett, music's quirkiest and most talented un-hunk.

3 The Bobbitts Before their little spat made headlines, John and Lorena Bobbitt were just another unglamorous couple with a lot to work out. But on a June night -- after, Lorena later claimed, John had raped her -- she cut off his penis. The organ was surgically reattached, and all's well that ends in media bewitchment: John, acquitted of the rape, appears as a jovial guest on the Howard Stern Show, while Lorena, whose case is still pending, has become something of a feminist folk hero.

4 Heidi Fleiss She was a new kind of madam, neither a rouged and overweight 60-year-old nor even a pedigreed East Coast socialite. Young, skinny and hip, Fleiss was charged with running a ring of high-priced L.A. prostitutes. She threatened to name names from her oversize appointment book and thereby threw Hollywood moguls (and presumably various Mrs. Moguls) into late-summer turmoil.

5 Burt and Loni How did the magic unravel? After five years of marriage, Burt Reynolds sued Loni Anderson for divorce, and the subsequent conflict was extremely snarly. The high point -- spectaclewise -- came when Reynolds, on TV, challenged his ex to truth-serum and lie-detector tests to prove that she cheated on him before he cheated on her.

6 Shannen Doherty If you were going to hate someone this year, fashion dictated that you hate Brenda Walsh, or more particularly the actress who plays her on TV's Beverly Hills 90210. That was easy. Old boyfriends called her rage prone, co-workers called her snotty, landlords called her a deadbeat. Unfortunately, marrying ; the 19-year-old son of George Hamilton -- on a girlish whim -- did nothing to help Shannen appear mature. Said to be generally just too much of a pain, she reportedly won't be asked back to 90210.