My picks are Lucy Liu and Bea Arthur.
Miranda July and PJ Harvey and I’ll second Rebecca Pidgeon, though I think she’s a more classical beauty.
I’ll second this! Angeline Jolie and Ellen Barkin are the first two people I thought of when I saw the thread title. VERY SEXY, but not so pretty.
Mageina Tovah from Joan of Arcadia and Spider-Man 2 does it for me. Conventionally Hollywood beautiful? No. Smoking hot and sexy? Totally! I personally think she is beautiful. (A lot of beauty is knowing how to present yourself.) Much of what passes for conventional Hollywood beauty is bland and boring. Offbeat beauty looks all the more beautiful for being fresh and free from cliché.
I’ll second PJ Harvey, and add sexy rock star Bif Naked.
Her newest album released this year, Willst du mit mir gehen, is superb. I bought it on a whim, and it is now one of my most listened to. I’ve been steadily working my way through her back catalogue now, and she has been steadily putting out some seriously great songs under everyone’s non-deutsch-speaking radar for the last 20 years.
Who new? 
How about that high school private eye Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell).
From days gone by:
Mary Steenburgen
Christine Lahti
Elizabeth McGovern
Terri Garr
Elizabeth Perkins
Laura Dern
and even Bonnie Bedelia although she always looks like she has been slapped in the face with a dead fish.
Yes, her latest album is very good… but it doesn’t rock hard enough!
I’d love it if there was just one good rocker on there. You do realize she has been making children’s albums for a good deal of the last 20 years?
My personal favorite is Nena’s 1984 album “?” (Fragezeichen).
“Lass mich dein Pirat sein” (Let me be your Pirate), “Rette Mich” (Rescue Me), and “Der Anfang vom Ende” (The beginning of the end) are some of my favorite cuts.
Hmm… I have to say that about the only one to give really good answers so far has been Beware of Doug with examples such as:
[ul][li]Lili Taylor[/li][li]Ileana Douglas[/li][li]Jessi Klein[/li][li]Mary Gross[/li][li]Jane Kaczmarek[/li][li]Allison Janney[/ul][/li]Everyone else keeps cheating. The following women are beautiful:
[ul][li]Drew Barrymore[/li][li]Jodie Foster[/li][li]Jullianne Moore[/li][li]Angelina Jolie[/li][li]Elizabeth McGovern[/li][li]Elizabeth Perkins[/li][li]Anna Paquin[/li][li]Ellen Barkin[/li][li]Lucy Lui[/li][li]Jill Hennessy[/li][li]Ann-Margaret[/li][li]Kirsten Dunst[/li][li]Jessica Lange[/li][li]Lindsey Lohan[/li][li]Bonnie Bedelia[/li][li]Andie McDowell[/ul][/li]Even if any of the above women don’t do it for you, any and all of them could make a living as a top model, where as the ones in the first list (the kind the OP is talking about) could not.
I would also include in the Sexy but not (model) beautiful list:
[ul][li]Meryl Streep[/li][li]Mary Steenburgen[/li][li]Kathy Griffin[/li][li]Terri Garr[/li][li]Susan Sarandon[/li][li]Bonnie Hunt[/li][li]Jan Hooks[/li][li]Janene Garafolo[/li][li]Sandra Bernhart[/li][li]Amanda Plumber[/ul][/li]I think some are right on the fence. They are not traditionally model beautiful but unique looking enough that they are considered so:
[ul][li]Laura Dern[/li][li]Uma Thermon[/li][li]Cameron Diaz[/li][li]Minnie Driver[/li][li]Julia Roberts[/ul][/li]
I feel so dirty…
Well, I think he’s lovely, but Stephen Rea would probably fit the bill.
I’ll bring up Hilary Swank, considered very nasty by some friends of mine, but definitely on my “Sexy” list. I think she’s beautiful, too, but I seem to be the only one.
God, no. I think she and her identical albeit male twin, Matt Damon, are gorgeous. Always have, even when she was best known as The Next Karate Kid.
I agree with Hail Ants. A lot of you are cheating. Most of these woman are beautiful.
I thought that this thread was a reference to Match Point. I saw it last night and this is exactly the way that Scarlet Johansen describes herself in that movie.
I came in here to mention Hilary! So I see your Hilary, and raise you a Kristen Chenowith. Oh, mama.
Laura San Giacomo and Mary Woronov.
(Sorry, just googled up some pics of Laura-san and was momentarily…uh…incapacitated.)
Wendie Malick, Christine Baranski, Patricia Clarkson, Shae d’Lyn (Jenna Elfman’s kooky neighbor for Dharma & Greg), Annie Potts, Nancy McKeon, Julia Stiles, Frances McDormand, Christina Ricci…
Difficult game as usually the worst you find is “Mary Ann from Gilligan’s Island ugly” not “Quasimoto ugly”.
Agreed. I always considered her kind of a Cate Blanchette Light (who I would also put on the list).
Allison Hannigan would be a perfect example. She’s not pretty in the way that the other American Pie girls are, but she’s still pretty hot.
Some people would put Jannine Garafalo on the list (I wouldn’t though).
Disqualified for being too classicly “pretty”:
Julia Stiles, Christina Ricci
I would put Jenna Elfman on the list as she isn’t beautiful and she’s kind of lanky, but still pretty hot.
OK. “Pretty but not beautiful.” I’d put Jenna Elfman in that category too.
Now we’re really splitting hairs…but they’re pretty nice hairs to split…
I think we just discovered a new verb.
“Man she was beggin’ for me to NoClueBoy her.”
“Go NoClueBoy yourself.”
In regard to the OP: I’d say Fran Drescher. Never thought she was beautiful, and her voice is like a fork on a chalkboard. But when I was about 14, she was on the Tonight Show, and made a reference to sitting on someone’s face, in a sexual context. Let’s just say I’m glad my parents were already in bed, because my 14-year-old self needed to be alone in the moments following. To this day, because of that comment, I find her sexy.