10 sexy sirens of the big screen

Let’s start with what I don’t mean by sexy.

I don’t mean pretty. Katie Holmes and Natalie Portman are pretty but I’ve never found them particularly hot. Oh, and I don’t mean hot, either. Yes, Jessica Simpson in her Daisy Dukes is hot. But for all the back-and-forth about her intelligence — she’s dumb as a stump; no wait, she’s smart like a fox; no wait, she’s got an I.Q. of 150 — there’s still a stunned look in her eyes that is the antithesis of sexy. She may turn out to be a good comic actress — I like her line reading of “I think something bounced up into my undercarriage” — and, with the help of a personal trainer, her body is now one of the hottest around. But sexy doesn’t come from a personal trainer.

Sexy is balance. Cool and hot at the same time. Interest and disinterest. It’s not passive but it’s not in a hurry either. It seems to arrive at that moment in a woman’s life when she’s still hot but can no longer rely on it completely. Or maybe it arrives when a woman decides to take charge. Or maybe I just like women taking charge.

Most women in their 20s (I’m 42) aren’t particularly sexy to me. They’ve got this stuff, and boys like it, and that seems enough: Here I am, entertain me. Susan Sarandon started out as a bug-eyed beauty in the 1970s, and her “Toucha-toucha-touch-me” number in “Rocky Horror” was certainly hot, as was the lemony goodness of “Atlantic City,” but it wasn’t until “Bull Durham,” at the age of 41, that she became blow-out sexy to me. Now she’s sexy’s Grand Dame. On the other hand I found Kim Cattrall sexy even in her 20s. Go figure.

Sexy is personal, and so the list below is personal. It’s not like People magazine’s list of “The 50 Most Beautiful People Who Are Successful This Year.” (It’s amazing how winning an Oscar can make somebody beautiful.) Some of the women below are on every one of these lists, some are on none, but all make me happy to be a man.

10. Sigourney Weaver, 55

Darryl James / Getty Images file Note: The author thinks Weaver is much sexier than she looks in this photo.

As part of a mother-daughter con team in “Heartbreakers,” Jennifer Love Hewitt flounces around in various skimpy outfits but it’s Sigourney who raises temperatures simply by raising her eyebrow. She’s been doing that for years. She played dumb but sexy in “Galaxy Quest,” sexy but bitchy in “The Ice Storm,” and in “Dave” is the First Lady we’d most like to interrupt our shower. All of this in her 40s. Now she’s in her 50s. As is Susan Sarandon and Rene Russo. A half-century never looked so good.

9. Anastasya Makeyeva, 24
Anastasya Who? Don’t worry. She’s a Russian model who’s appeared in exactly one film (in Russia), but it points up the advantage of being a film critic and going to the screenings and seeing the films no one sees. You get in on the ground floor. Consider this the IPO of a very hot product. To be honest, I don’t even know if Anastasya is a particularly good actress. All I know is that when I was watching “The Rider Named Death” and she came onscreen I said, “Who is that?” Now I want to see more of her.

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