Passing the torch
Irène Jacob turned 40 on Saturday. Famke Janssen is 40, too. Lena Olin is 51. All the hottest actresses in Hollywood are over 40 now.
No big deal? You must not mind getting old as much as I do. Our fantasy women get older as we get older. Bummer.
So maybe it’s time for a new generation. Christina Hendricks, A.J. Cook, Morena Baccarin, Michelle Williams (thinking of the Oscars here), and Keira Knightley are all ’78ers or later. Long may they live, and never get older than I.
Add contributions as you will to the comments page.






















July 20th, 2006 at 16h52
J. Alba was the one I obviously didn’t close the tag on (if you know what I mean).
July 20th, 2006 at 17h00
Also, the one I said you forgot, you, uh, didn’t. Forget.
July 20th, 2006 at 16h50
’80, ’81, and, OK, one that’s just slightly older than you, ’77.
Another ’81, here’s a ’78er, ’75 ain’t totally out of your league. Yes, older women are hot (you missed one. But there are plenty of very attractive young women out there now… the list goes on, and on, and on.
July 20th, 2006 at 18h23
If I can extend my boundaries by a couple years, as you suggest, Amy Acker. Leaving out Natalie was an obvious oversight, as was Jessica Alba, although the latter is an airhead, I’m told. Kristen Bell? Not so much for me. I know she was your classmate and all, but…
July 21st, 2006 at 00h44
No, Mike, I think it’s safe to say that (1) every grown man who saw The Professional found Natalie sexy and (2) every grown man feels really, really weird about this. Personally, I’m not too into her dead-eyed delivery in the Star Wars movies. The script sucked, but she could have at least tried. Or, in wiser words than I could come up with: “Hold me, like you did by the lake on Naboo.”
I think I mentioned to Dave one time that Keira Knightley is better at being Natalie Portman than Natalie Portman is.
July 20th, 2006 at 23h47
I know that this is going to sound utterly, utterly perverted, but Natalie Portman has gotten progressively less capable of holding my interest with each film after The Professional. She’s inoffensively bland, not unpleasant to look at, but not really captivating either. I feel as though I could sit comfortably in a room with her and not be intimidated by her looks or sexual presence (and I’m easily intimidated).
Also, the two women ever to leave me speechless with their beauty and charm were both actresses over 40.
July 21st, 2006 at 09h52
To be perfectly fair, I wasn’t really more than a year or two older than her when The Professional came out. And given that, in Star Wars, she plays a grown-ass woman who falls in love with a ten year old boy, I guess I can’t complain too much.
I thank God that I missed that “lake on Naboo” line (never saw Episode II, and only saw a grand total of ten minutes of EpisodeIII).
July 21st, 2006 at 10h23
My contributions…
Sibel Kekilli was born in ’80. She doesn’t really look good in photographs; you need to see her move. Head On was the hottest film I’ve seen in years.
In the “what the Hell happened to Carrie Henn” catagory, I would argue that Judith Vittet (born in 1986, which would make her twenty years old today) has probably grown into a heart-rendingly beautiful young woman. Unfortunately, I can’t find any mention of her post-1997, so I’ll never know.
I lust for Grace Park (’79, baby!). Hot chicks with guns! Boo-yah!
Oh, Kerry Condon, you justify the existence of 1983 (Rome is filled with people that I find incredibly attractive, often the men more than the women).
That’s all for now, but it’s a good start.
August 8th, 2006 at 17h11
Evangeline Lilly.
August 12th, 2006 at 17h46
Kelly Brook.
August 31st, 2006 at 15h35
Summer Glau. Brandy Heidrick.
April 9th, 2007 at 01h12
Joanne Kelly.
April 23rd, 2007 at 17h40
girl indian kissing…
Features of girl indian kissing….
April 24th, 2007 at 12h48
Oddly, that comment kind of fits. I’m leaving it for now.
July 12th, 2007 at 22h05
Kristanna Loken (yow).
July 22nd, 2007 at 17h10
Tania Raymonde
August 8th, 2007 at 00h48
Just started watching “Jericho”. So, Sprague Grayden. And, comfortingly, Candace Bailey is profoundly not jailbait, being 25 years old if IMDB is to be believed. She plays a sixteen-year-old, the love interest of a boy played by a man six years her junior in real life.
October 29th, 2007 at 21h22
OK, the one I’ve been postponing. The new Battlestar Galactica. Katee Sackhoff, while reasonably pretty, is going to win an Oscar some day, and that makes her ultra-hot. Kandyse McClure: hot, and good American accent. Tricia Helfer? Older than me, but OH MY GOD. But everyone goes nuts over Grace Park. Does nothing for me, except maybe when she’s in peril. I have actually been accused of racism for not finding her hot. I’d do Jamie Bamber, Alessandro Juliani, and James Callis first (all probably older than I.)
October 29th, 2007 at 21h16
Lucy Hale. w00t! Not being jailbait: mega-w00t.
November 15th, 2007 at 10h43
Sarah Roemer
January 26th, 2008 at 21h10
[...] 300), the character of John (played by a new actor for me), and the female Terminator (played by yowza Summer Glau, made-up as a teenager) are all portrayed very convincingly and likably. All [...]
February 10th, 2008 at 19h36
Olivia Wilde, who is so overdue for addition to the list:
October 16th, 2008 at 18h53
I love that picture of Olivia Wilde, immediately above, dressed and coiffed grunge (where my fashion sense still lies.) Natural fibers that look tea-dyed, long sleeves, long straight brown hair, even Seattle-reminiscent coffee motifs: it’s where my heart still is. I still walk around with a flannel tied around my waist, and wear nothing but cotton and wool — and the color palette of my clothes is startlingly subdued, despite assurances from most people that I look as good or better in bright colors.
I also cannot believe I never added Eliza Dushku.
So, I started watching Tru Calling a couple days ago. Dushku wasn’t sufficient reason for me to start watching, but then I found out that A.J. Cook (who was in my original “Passing the Torch” list) was also in it.
I’m not entirely sure what it is about A.J. Cook: she is upsettingly beautiful, in the sense that it is uncomfortable to watch her. I don’t know why. I really hate her supercilious and sarcastic character (she plays sarcastic in a lot of her roles, although I suspect [for some unknown reason] that she really is a kind and intelligent woman in real life), but I still watch.
In the second episode, Cook lets herself into Dushku’s apartment. Dushku is under the covers and still in pajamas. Cook sits down on the bed, and after offering a gift of food, leadingly asks, “Is there something you want to say to me?”
“Let’s make out?” was my hope. But no such luck.
God, I hope they don’t read this.
Very interesting to me that these two young women are among the most adamant in Hollywood about not doing nude scenes. More power to them. But this is in a climate in which Katie Holmes and frakking Anna Paquin have been topless onscreen. If I had been forced to choose which pair would oppose and which pair would agree to topless scenes, I would have been 100% wrong.
Anyway, I’ve only seen a few episodes, all of which could seemingly be synced by their timecodes, with their confrontations, false reveals, and final reveals at exactly the same moments — variety, please!
I do want to complain, however, about the makeup in the show. Seriously, Dushku in glossy pink lipstick, heavy eye makeup, and pronounced blush? Cook made up like a Barbie doll? They were a 23-year-old and a 25-year-old playing 22-year-old college grads — there is no reason that they should be dolled up like 14-year-olds who chose their own makeup.
Yeah, it’s probably another grunge preference, but it still drives me crazy. I rather insensitively used to call makeup “war paint”, and almost always find women more attractive without or with very subtle makeup. I think, for instance, that Evangeline Lilly’s makeup on Lost is some of the best on television.
Ramble, ramble, ramble.
October 23rd, 2008 at 07h14
Leah Pipes, who is actually a little bit younger than Tania Raymonde who I flipped out about being added to the list (I posted to that effect, but it was clobbered, presumably by a backup-restore.) She really is a lovely young woman, though:
March 10th, 2009 at 18h50
She is a 76er (so were all my classmates at college, so maybe she can get grandfathered in): Erin Burnett is hot with a capital hot, and appears brilliant on Real Time with Bill Maher. Mininova seems completely barren when it comes to people sharing videos of CNBC shows (can’t imagine why), and I don’t get cable, so I don’t have much of an idea about her politics. Her beauty, on the other hand, is readily apparent.
March 10th, 2009 at 23h22
[...] saying he doesn’t deserve a Grammy is all good, but seriously. Come on. This is Eliza Dushku in [...]
May 11th, 2009 at 06h44
Lindy Booth. Yum.
May 11th, 2009 at 07h55
[...] Passing the Torch — contributions still courted. Advertisers, heads-up: the page gets shloads of traffic. [...]
May 14th, 2009 at 19h04
[...] Eliza Dushku on nude scenes: “You have a better chance of seeing God than me naked.” [...]
July 1st, 2009 at 23h16
[...] Jaime Murray was in season 2 of Dexter, and as it happens, there is already a picture of her on the site, and may be deserving of another (hold on, I’m going to go check IMDB for her birth year. 1977 — just six or seven months out of placement in “Passing the Torch”.) [...]
July 22nd, 2009 at 20h52
I’ve been called to the … um … something without a pun (?) for maintaining a “hot chicks room”, but: Rachel Miner with a Suicide Girls makeover?
In partial attempted defense, the woman can act, and the faster she can get out of being mired in genre stuff, the better Hollywood will be.
July 22nd, 2009 at 23h47
David Duchovny is male and will be fifty next year. That doesn’t necessarily exclude him from a list of hot Hollywood women younger than I, right?
August 26th, 2009 at 20h24
Jessica Lowndes (so far the youngest woman on the list.) I guess she’s in the new 90210? I know her from the Horrorfest.
February 10th, 2010 at 00h11
Oh, good grief. Lindsay Pulsipher. I’d like to cast her as Emilie de Ravin’s younger (?), hotter sister. I don’t know how old she is, but it’s surely somewhere between “legal” and “me”.
March 4th, 2010 at 19h08
Let’s see, passing the torch? Hmmm, maybe if a person is only attracted to youth. I’ve found it depends on what a man, in my case, wants in a woman. Been around enough early 20′s type to decide that no matter how great looking they are I’m really not ready for the attitude that goes with that age. I had that same type when I was that age.
I’ll take the older women. They usually have discarded all the crap they’ve have pounded into their heads as young girls and are more comfortable with what and who they are. Not to mention, usually but not always, pretty down to earth.
As far as stars go, gave up on them when I finally left the Hollywood studios after my seven years there. Give me a woman in jeans, hiking boots that likes the outdoors, racing but can also go and appreciate opera. After working opera for 10 years I do.
March 24th, 2010 at 22h43
Anna Torv. Danielle Panabaker. Alice Kremelberg.
March 24th, 2010 at 22h44
Also, 40 is sounding way less old than it did four years ago.
March 26th, 2010 at 16h29
Rachel McAdams. Amanda Seyfried.
April 13th, 2010 at 23h51
I have a very embarrassing admission to make. I stated earlier that I don’t watch horror movies in which the formula is, in Bob Mike’s words, “The super-hot girl that reminds most horror fans of the girl that they never worked up the nerve to ask on a date in high school gets gorily killed by one or more psychopaths”. But I rented Sorority Row, as it was a “horror new release”, and not only did I continue watching it after this was revealed to be the formula, but I restarted it from the beginning and watched it again, as this tale of a prank-gone-wrong at a sorority house was across-the-board populated by impossibly beautiful young women. So: Audrina Patridge, Briana Evigan, Caroline D’Amore, Jamie Chung, Leah Pipes (already on this list), and the stunning Margo Harshman.
April 14th, 2010 at 16h12
Laura Vandervoort.
May 13th, 2010 at 02h55
This page is by far the most-visited archive page on mcgees.org. So please pardon me while I do a little Google/sociological experiment. The page gets around 100 visits per day. I’m very curious what the results would be if I were to write something like, oh, I don’t know, hot nude naked topless sex fake fakes pics in this comment. Thanks. That’s all. Results to follow in a week or so.
June 10th, 2010 at 09h21
The hotties from back then had a much harder road to travel. Now a days all you have to be is pretty and a little crazy and you have yourself a reality show or be part of one. Audrina Patridge, Jennifer Farley, KIm Kardashian… they either fell into the role or was born into it.
I still think and alot of people think Jennifer Aniston is the hottest girl in Hollywood still. I have to agree.
June 25th, 2010 at 12h00
hi