Sex Stars 1998

There was, without question, a changing of the guard for sex stars in 1998, from the old Reliables to the Young and Fearless. It began with the spectacular on-screen sinking of the HMS Titanic, which floated its young lovers, 23-year-olds Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, straight to the top of box-office attractions. And it wasn't the nautical disaster's special effects that packed the cineplexes; it was the film's Romeo-and-Juliet love story. Matt Damon, 27, and Ben Affleck, 26, demonstrated both acting and filmmaking chops in Good Will Hunting, a project they'd nurtured from their own screenplay through development, finally winning an Academy Award (one of the few not swallowed up by Titanic's wake). Catherine Zeta-Jones, a 28-year-old actress well known in her native Wales but [text continued on page 223] Sex Stars 1998 [continued from page 155] just starting in Hollywood, paired up with smoldering Spaniard Antonio Banderas to win American audiences in The Mask of Zorro. The names of Cameron Diaz, 25, and Jim Carrey (at 36, an elder statesman in this crowd) on theater marquees virtually guaranteed box-office success. No longer did producers require the signing of a Mel Gibson, a Bruce Willis, a Michelle Pfeiffer or a Meryl Streep before they would green-light a project. These days it's the boyish charm of a DiCaprio, Damon or Affleck that draws teenage girls, the new targets of marketing mavens. Hollywood's new motto, apparently, is Youth Must Be Served.

That said, no woman in her right mind would kick Sean Connery or Clint Eastwood, each a robust 68, or Robert Redford, 61, off the screen---or out of bed, (Two of the sexiest male stars of the decade are Antonio Banderas, 38, and George Clooney, 37, not exactly teenyboppers.) Nor would most guys spurn 52-year-old but perennially sexy Susan Sarandon. But the buzz is all about a much younger generation of actors, many of whom cut their teeth on television. As entertainment industry analyst Jae Kim pointed out to USA Today reporter Janet Weeks: "The most effective casting tool in Hollywood today is TV Guide."

DiCaprio got his start on ABC-TV's Growing Pains.Neve Campbell,Wild Things' teen rape victim and queen of the Scream franchise, and Jennifer Love Hewitt of Can't Hardly Wait and the I Know What You Did Last Summer movies, come from the cast of Party of Five.Denise Richards, also of Wild Things, did guest shots on Married With Children, Seinfeld and Lois and Clark before nabbing a breakthrough role in Starship Troopers.Sarah Michelle Gellar landed Last Summer and the forthcoming Cruel Inventions (yet another riff on the play Dangerous Liaisons) on the strength of her series Buffy the Vampire Slayer---which, in an odd twist, is a hit TV show based on a so-so 1992 movie. Also tube-tested are Calista (Ally McBeal) Flockhart, Will (Fresh Prince of Bel-Air) Smith,Melrose Place's Heather Locklear, herself a veteran of T.J. Hooker and Dynasty, and the horny teens from Dawson's Creek,Michelle Williams, James Van Der Beek and Katie Holmes, cast in Halloween: H20, Varsity Blues and Disturbing Behavior, respectively. Catherine Zeta-Jones came to Britain's attention in the series Darling Buds of May---and was spotted on American TV's Hallmark production of Titanic by Steven Spielberg, who got her cast in Zorro.Salma Hayek, before moving north, was the queen of Mexican soap operas. In the U.S. this year, she made five films, notably 54 and Dogma, and is producing and starring in Frida, the biography of artist Frida Kahlo. Another veteran of a youth spent on TV, Rick Schroder (the spoiled teen of Silver Spoons), is settling into the NYPD Blue role left vacant by Jimmy Smits for supposedly greener Hollywood pastures. Clooney, the roguish heartthrob of TV's top-rated ER, will follow Smits off the small screen at the end of this season. It remains to be seen whether his smoky charisma will create as many sparks on the big screen as it does on the small one. Jennifer Lopez, in Out of Sight, has come closest of any of his movie partners to tapping into Clooney's sexual chemistry. (She sings, too, with a recording contract under her belt.) Maria Bello has already departed ER for screen roles opposite Ben Stiller in Permanent Midnight, the true story of writer Jerry Stahl's descent into and rehab from a drug addiction, and in Payback, a thriller opposite Mel Gibson. But series regulars Julianna Margulies, Gloria Reuben and ballsy Brit newcomer Alex Kingston, hither to best known on this side of the Atlantic as Ralph Fiennes' ex-wife, will keep the gurneys rolling in the top-rated hospital drama.

Over at Baywatch---for nearly a decade the world's incubator of well-developed sex goddesses---Playmates Donna D'Errico and Marliece Andrada and cast-mate Traci Bingham found themselves cast ashore along with Carmen Electra (Gena Lee Nolin voluntarily joined the exodus). Donna hit a new beach with MTV's Prima Donna and a TV movie comedy, Men in White, while Heidi Mark, Miss July 1995, set sail as cruise director on The Love Boat: The Next Wave. Another Playboy pictorial subject with a new gig was Downtown Julie Brown, formerly of MTV and E, who is hosting a lifestyle show for the recently launched Cigar TV network.

One exception to Tinseltown's TV-training-ground rule is South African native Charlize Theron, 23, whose career as a ballet dancer was cut short by a knee injury. As versatile as she is sexy, Charlize switched to acting and her impressive work in 1997's The Devil's Advocate helped land her parts in Mighty Joe Young, The Astronaut's Wife and Woody Allen's next project, Celebrity.

This was also a year of lists---from the 100 best films to Movieline's 100 dumbest things Hollywood has done lately. The British magazine FHM ranked the 100 sexiest women in the world, with the top spot going to Playboy's Jenny McCarthy (while pictorial subject Carmen Electra took the prominent number six spot). After getting off to a rocky start in two television series, Jenny resurfaced in the wacky screen comedy Baseketball and is booked as Betty in the forthcoming movie musical version of the comic strip Archie. She's also in line for the Farrah Fawcett role in the projected Charlie's Angels.

Among hardworking supermodels, Elle Macpherson became, according to the British magazine Business Age, the world's wealthiest (estimated worth: $38.4 million)---and a mother, to boot. Naomi Campbell did a good deed, hosting a benefit fashion show in South Africa for the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund. Playboy's 1997 Playmate of the Year, Victoria Silvstdt, posed with twin models Derek and Keith Brewer on photographer Victor Skrebneski's sexy 1998 Chicago Film Festival poster, then turned over her PMOY crown to schoolteacher Karen McDougal, who took a break from the classroom to pursue fame and fortune in Hollywood. Cindy Crawford, second only to Elle in Business Age's monied-model rankings ($35.9 million) married restaurateur Rande Gerber, posed for a provocative Playboy portfolio by photographer Herb Ritts and signed a multishow deal with ABC-TV. The first special in the series bore an irresistible title: Sex With Cindy Crawford.

From the world of music, violinist Linda Brava and Ginger Spice Geri Halliwell bared their physical assets in Playboy and their instrumental and vocal talents onstage. Geri also made tabloid news when, after her abrupt departure from the Spice Girls, she received a gushy goodbye note from Prince Charles.

The Internet is still humming along as a home base for sex stars, with model Cindy Margolis the girl most frequently downloaded for a second straight year. Pamela Anderson may wish she were less visible on the World Wide Web, given widely disseminated videos of sexcapades with her soon-to-be ex-husband, Tommy Lee, and with a former flame, Poison's Bret Michaels. But Pam is doing very well with her new syndicated television series, VIP, in which she runs a celebrity-bodyguard agency.

Sports fans of varied persuasions had their own idols to admire this year, including boxing's Oscar de la Hoya, the NBA's Michael Jordan, French soccer hero Zinedine Zidane, tennis wunderkind Anna Kournikova and WNBA star Lisa Leslie.

Who's Dating Whom has been a popular media pastime since the days of Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, but this year it seemed as if our young idols were playing a game of Musical Stars. Gwyneth Paltrow, after her widely publicized split from Brad Pitt, was soon seen on the arm of Ben Affleck, whose Good Will Hunting co-star, Matt Damon, broke up with his love interest in that movie, Minnie Driver, in favor of Winona Ryder. Minnie, meanwhile, has taken up with the Foo Fighters' drummer, Taylor Hawkins. Pitt has reportedly been seeing Friends'Jennifer Aniston or Maria Pitillo of House Rules and Godzilla, depending on which gossip show you follow. (Actually, after Seven Years in Tibet, Pitt vanished into thin air. He's been filming two remakes: the imminent Meet Joe Black, based on the 1934 Fredric March classic Death Takes a Holiday, and Ambrose Chapel, a retrofit of The Man Who Knew Too Much. He's also working on a film of Fight Club, from a debut novel by recent University of Oregon grad Chuck Palahniuk.) Liv Tyler, whose beauty and talents have been enlisted by directors Bernardo Bertolucci, Miloš Forman, Oliver Stone and Robert Altman, dates actor Joaquin (Return to Paradise, Clay Pigeons) Phoenix. Drew Barrymore, all grown up and relatively settled down in such fare as The Wedding Singer and the Cinderella update Ever After, is dating actor Luke Wilson. After a three-year bicoastal romance, Cameron Diaz split from her Something About Mary co-star Matt Dillon, who, Premiere speculated, may have a Dorian Gray-style portrait in his attic, for his dark good looks remain the same as they were 14 years ago in The Flamingo Kid.

There have been rumors, so far unsubstantiated, that Jim Carrey---hot off The Truman Show and busy with remakes of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and The Incredible Mr. Limpet---is reconciling with his erstwhile wife, Lauren Holly, and that Halle Berry is doing likewise with her ballplayer ex, David Justice. (Carrey, however, showed up unattached for the Midsummer Night's Dream party at Playboy Mansion West, and our only sports news concerning Halle is that she's scheduled to make a boxing movie, Ringside, directed by fight fan Norman Mailer.)

So who's waiting in the wings for a chance at sex stardom? Our crystal ball---along with everyone else's---was slightly clouded last year, when we predicted big things for Matthew McConaughey, Ewan McGregor and Jenny McCarthy in 1998. They're all still here, but 1998 hasn't seen them in their prime. McConaughey, who made a greater impression on fan-mag writers than he did at ticket windows in Amistad and The Newton Boys, is branching out to direction (a short documentary) and production (Last Flight of the Raven, no relation to the Carmen Electra vehicle). He also stars in Ed TV, due out next year, which sounds all too derivative of The Truman Show. McGregor has made six movies this year, but at this writing only Velvet Goldmine has been released. Next year, however, he will produce and star (as James Joyce) in Nora, based on the work by the Irish novelist, and will portray the young Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: Episode I.

We're willing to climb out on a limb again, but this time we're betting on the girls. Christina Ricci has matured since her gig as Wednesday in The Addams Family movies, vamping shamelessly in The Opposite of Sex and Buffalo '66. "I don't think I'll be reformed until I'm well into my 50s," she told one interviewer. We hope not. Reese Wither-spoon amazed as a slutty teen in the underestimated Twilight, starring Paul Newman and Susan Sarandon, and she's due next year in that Dangerous Liaisons remake, Cruel Inventions. Gretchen Mol? Vanity Fair names her the It Girl.

Here at Playboy: After meeting her and being bowled over by her personality, we're laying our entire grubstake on Cameron Diaz. She's a natural.