Contemporary: Halle Berry
Classic: Ingrid Bergman (esp. from Casablanca)
What? No mentions of Pamela Anderson yet?!?!
~jumps away from flames
DEFINATELY Rosie O’Donnell
haha, just joking.
Elizabeth Hurley or Jennifer Aniston
Easy.
The young Jaqueline Bisset.
Next thread, please.
Gwen Stefani. Oh my sweet Jesus. I’m a heterosexual teenage girl but oh my GOD. -staggers away drooling- Pictures on my wall, daaaamn. If you go to Google and type in her name the links and amount of fan sites with pictures are crazy.
Am I the only one with a crush on Nelly Furtado?
Gwen Stefani - hellO! Just the right mix of woman and grrrl for a young person-of-undetermined-sexuality to, well, appreciate.
Time for an slight oddball vote. Norika Fujiwara
If you want all-American, I agree on Jennifer Connelly & Phoebe Cates.
For the art-house set, it would be Monica Vitti (can’t find a good pic) and Stephane Audran (http://www.tedstrong.com/stephane.html).
Oh, then there’s Gina Lollabridgida. Mama mia!
Well, it took a while, but someone finally mentioned Michelle Pfeiffer. She’s one of three that run a virtual dead heat in my estimation. The other two: Rebecca DeMornay and Jan Smithers.
(Yeah, I know that Jan’s kind of obsolete at this point. Well, so am I . . .)
Anne Hathaway, hands down. (no, not Shakespear’s wife, the girl from The Princess Diaries).
Jan Smithers! Yes! Another in the all-American category!
Add my name to the Winona camp.
/Coil - whos wife looks like Winona (at least according to a coworker of mine)
Monica Brant, without a doubt. She has a great personality, too. 
so many beautiful women. As far as actresses whose movies I’ll see regardless, I’ll say Jennifer Connelly does it for me. She has a different look in Requiem for a Dream than in her other movies, but it works well. On the soft-core side of things I’ll have to go with Catalina Larranaga.
This is an answer out of left field, but people of a certain age in the British Commonwealth countries will know where I’m coming from.
Queen Elizabeth was only 26-27 when she became the monarch, and at such a young age, had a series of grand tours of Commonwealth countries, most of the time to places where such a global figure had never been before. She spent 3-4 months touring Australia, going to (nearly) every one-horse town here, being fawned over by local mayors, parliamentarians and prime ministers alike. And she had the most radiant, serene and happy countenance the whole time. When she came to a region, everyone came to see her, and the ‘glamour’ had a lot to do with it. After the dour Victoria and the dull, stuttering Georges, she was a monarch mirabilis.
So young, so pretty, such a queen to be proud of. Reading the newspapers of the time, they are full of this ‘awful weight of duty on such slender shoulders’ purple prose.
For those few short years of the mid-50s, when a new ‘Elizabethan Age’ was being touted, she was the glamourpuss of the century.
You Kizaki
Need I remind you people of the overwhelming beauty that is Angelina Jolie?
Sheesh, 97 posts and no one has mentioned her yet, I’m ashamed of you people.
Irena Voronina
Tough call,
Portia, Latitia(sp), Michelle, Angelina, Winona, Femke… I can’t decide…
There is also Natasha Henstridge… I should also mention a woman in my building who my co-workers and I have nicknamed “R” (short for rediculous, as in “She is so amazingly hot, it’s rediculous.”)
But if I am going to vote it would be either Jessica Alba and/or Jeri Ryan. Alba can wear hip-huggers like no one else, and her hair this season is beyond words. Ryan is even hotter outside of her Seven of Nine role than she was in it, and I would have thought that impossible. They both have incredible bodies, faces, eyes, lips, etc. It really boils down to whether I am in a blonde or brunette mood.
To further complicate the choices, I have been watching women’s national volleyball on the Women’s Sports Network and the American libero, Holy Effing Crap!!! She is so hot! Throw in a couple of the Cuban’s in those amazing uniforms and we have proven that V-Ball is the best game on the planet!