Sex Stars 1999

Feels like everyone wants to be a sex star these days. Movie and TV producers seem intent on hitting us right below our Deepak Chopra. Everywhere we turn there are girls in tight clothes and cold studios, shaking more tail than the NBC peacock. However, allure is an ephemeral thing. Beautiful celebrities abound--but not all have mojo worth stealing. Sexiness is hard to fake. Whenever a starlet strikes the obligatory provocative pose, it's time to wonder, Is she doing it for lust or for money?

The winsome wild things in Sex Stars 1999 have one thing in common: They are all sexy by intent. They're money and they know it. On other fronts, brunettes are running even with blondes, thick curly hair is edging (text continued on page 242)Sex Stars(continued from page 148) out straight hairdos and new technology stocks are outperforming the blue chips.

You want news? This year Latin was the loving tongue. We're standing behind Jennifer Lopez no matter what slamming Salma Hayek has to say. One more "misquoted" crack about how Lopez isn't Spanish enough, and we're going to tae-bo Hayek's butt. Judging from the effects the exercise program has had on Lopez' celebrated posterior, that wouldn't be half bad. Also, note the picture of Ricky Martin. Apparently he's the kind of guy who makes girls go crazy. Not much we can do about him--he's blessed with stellar genes. If there is a lesson here for the regular guy, it's that unchecked enthusiasm can dignify even the silliest dance moves.

Liz Hurley. She plays spanking games with blue bloods. She wears Versace safety-pin dresses. She pops up everywhere half naked and doesn't seem to have much of a job other than turning us on. Then there's her sex-star boyfriend, Hugh Grant. Not only did Hurley ride out the Divine Brown thing, she stuck by Grant even after he made Notting Hill. On top of it all, she's British. You just know this lady's kinky.

Here's the question of the century: Would Shania Twain look sexy if she took off her clothes? We'll never know. She makes us long for the days when country stars teased their hair, not their audience. While Twain's sex-laden videos give us hope, her husband is some kind of mastermind producer who is probably not into sharing. Which is why we love Julia Roberts, even though she seems to have weaned herself off shlumps by hooking up with that Law and Order guy. She even appeared on his television show for a ratings and relationship boost.

Catherine Zeta-Jones has been in a few movies this year. Which ones? Who cares? She tamed Michael Douglas, a self-described sex addict, long enough to have him pose for a few pictures with her. That's sex-star qualification enough. If Douglas hangs around, you know that she has something good going on. Keri Russell, star of Felicity, has us worried that she doesn't understand what brought her to this sexy state: She went and cut her hair. We'll see if she makes next year's list. On the other hand, Heather Kozar, PMOY 1999, went for the bob and got us hook, line and sinker. Since she came along, Playboy parties haven't been the same. Just ask George Clooney.

Sophie Marceau is cute and French. In fact, she's forever been young and French. That's the way they build them over there. In the new Bond flick, The World Is Not Enough, Marceau sits down and treats Pierce Brosnan like a Chippendale chair--a complete wax job. Brosnan makes this year's cut because he runs better than Roger Moore and has neater chest hair than Sean Connery. His 1999 hit list is impressive. As Bond he nabbed Denise Richards, and in The Thomas Crown Affair he submitted to Rene Russo. Let's break it down: Richards went crazy cuckoo with Neve Campbell and Matt Dillon in Wild Things. Then, in a not-so-brilliant career move, she wore Mount Rushmore on her head as a beauty pageant contestant in Drop Dead Gorgeous. Thankfully, she redeemed herself by scoring with 007. At 45 years old, Russo has twice the experience of a girl half her age. The inside scoop had Rene studying with a dominatrix to help her project a sense of dominant sexuality. It was an enticing story until pictures of the dominatrix surfaced. Let's just say she had twice the experience of Russo. Must have been the same lady Tom Cruise studied under for his role in Stanley Kubrick's psychosexual snorer, Eyes Wide Shut. You just know Nicole Kidman doesn't let him treat her like that in real life. However, her nude scenes explained why she received all those standing ovations for her flashy Broadway hit, The Blue Room.

As if her name weren't hard enough to pronounce (think romaine lettuce), now we have to call the hottest model of the year by her hyphenated last name, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos. Her husband is actor John "not so famous" Stamos, a guy whom we envy every time she talks about walking around her house naked. As payback, we left him out of the pictorial. Ditto her fictional beau from Just Shoot Me, David Spade. Romijn-Stamos possesses the century's most captivating isthmus of body flesh--the beautiful expanse between nookie and navel that we prefer to think of as lapland.

Caprice is next year's hottest model. She, too, is built of sturdy Teutonic plates. She's on the cover of all the British lad magazines and is big in Europe--we would guess about a C cup. Laetitia Casta, another bikini wonder, was the reason that this year's Internet broadcast of the Victoria's Secret runway show crashed the site. Sensory overload, you know. Cameron Diaz distanced herself even further from her modeling past with an unadorned role in Being John Malkovich--as if that would scare us off. Our own Playmate model Nikki Schieler (a.k.a. Mrs. Ian Ziering) is currently posing with prizes on The Price Is Right. Nice move, Nikki.

Here comes the Pam Anderson paragraph. It was a lot longer, but then we had it reduced. Two somethings about Pammy: She had her bust rejiggered, and her bodyguard series, V.I.P., took off--but not necessarily in that order. Oh, and she got back together with Tommy Lee.

Speaking of sequels, we're guessing you wouldn't mind going a few more rounds with Mia St. John, the female boxer who shed her briefs for us last month. In the other corner we have Rena Mero, the character formerly known as Sable. Mero did two bouts with Playboy and took on the WWF by bitch-slapping Vince McMahon and Company with a lawsuit. Still, she had time to pose for this sex-stars-only shot. A moment of silence, please.

Did you know that Sean Connery was named sexiest man of the century by New Woman? That's what he gets for outlasting his old school chum, Strom Thurmond. But be fair--he more than held his own with a latex-and-lasered Catherine Zeta-Jones in Entrapment. Oddly enough, Will Smith was the sexiest star to survive the Wild Wild West. (Take that, Salma! From Jennifer, with love.) Even odder, Disney's Tarzan was a notable example of the repressed religious right's ability to go ape over sex. Thanks to the up, down, up, down position of the hand on the Tarzan toy doll, uptight parents heard something sinister in the all-too-familiar yodel of jungle boy. Working the less-traveled path from cartoon character to human, Nell McAndrew took on modeling duties as Tomb Raider's Lara Croft. Then she shed the role and every stitch of her clothes in an adventurous Playboy pictorial. Now, that's taking it to the next level.

Angelina Jolie was a delightful surprise twice over. The daughter of Jon Voight turned the cable sleeper Gia (about a supermodel turned stupormodel) into an event. Then she casually mentioned that she was bisexual. What does she do for an encore? We would pose the same question to another cable-ready start, Halle Berry. She reminded us of how well her ex-husband, Indian slugger David Justice, played the field. She also reignited our jones for the pioneering actress she portrayed in Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. Ah, the joys of rebroadcasts.

Heather Graham and Charlize Theron touched down in our world last year, and they're keeping it up this year. Eddie Murphy couldn't handle Graham's astounding body in Bowfinger and we doubt we could, either. All we're looking for is the chance to fail. There's a good possibility that Theron is going to torment us for years. The Astronaut's Wife is her latest star vehicle. We're looking forward to the ride.

Since today is the first day of the next year of sex stars, we might as well look to the treats ahead. Showing potential--and a whole lot more--are American Beauty's Mena Suvari, Wasteland's Rebecca Gayheart, The Beach's Virginie Ledoyen and our favorite woman of a certain age, Being John Malkovich's Catherine Keener. Also, Brad Pitt looks like a knockout in Fight Club. As for sex-star slippage, we have more questions than answers. We'll leave you with a few: Why are the Friends girls looking more and more like Calista Flockhart? Who ever thought Leelee Sobieski was hot? What happened to Christina Applegate? And why doesn't Cokie Roberts return our phone calls?