PEOPLE named Paltrow one of the 50 Most Beautiful in 1998

http://people.aol.com/people/50most/1998/fifty/paltrow.html


She's regal with a delightful hint of rowdiness, injecting
some '90s spunk into the traditional private school grace.
"Audrey Hepburn comes to mind when you look at her," says
Hank Azaria, Paltrow's costar in last winter's Great
Expectations. "Except that Gwyneth is highly her own
creation." At 25, the bicoastally bred daughter of actress
Blythe Danner and TV producer Bruce Paltrow is still a work
in progress. Yet already she's a postmodern masterpiece.
"Her best feature is her bearing," says Ann Roth, costume
designer for Paltrow's recent psychodrama, Hush. "The chin
up, steady eyes, her posture. She has perfect skin and an
absolutely pristine physique. She's quite amazing."

And she doesn't gild the lily. "She's an astonishingly
beautiful person who still looks like a real person," says
Douglas McGrath, who directed Paltrow in the elaborate 1996
Jane Austen film Emma. "In photos, you see precisely what she
is feeling at the time. Delight, annoyance, hilarity -- it
all shows up." In her current romantic comedy Sliding Doors,
notes New York Observer critic Rex Reed, Paltrow's "a game
and gorgeous commodity ... [who] displays more depth and
range as an actress than her previous films have allowed."

As of last winter, the 5'9" Paltrow, who split with fiance
Brad Pitt in 1997, has been sporting the look of love,
thanks to Good Will Hunting actor and Oscar-winning
screenwriter Ben Affleck. But even when glued to an Adonis,
this Venus has a coltishness that Matt Reeves, who directed
her in 1996's The Pallbearer, finds "approachable and
accessible. Then suddenly she shifts her head a bit, and you
realize that she is extraordinarily stunning. It takes you
by surprise, like a sucker punch." What a knockout!