PEOPLE's 50 Most Beautiful: Okay, Who?

By Stephen M. Silverman

05/01/2002 at 04:27 PM EDT

Nicole Kidman didn't grab the Oscar for "Moulin Rouge," but the star, 34, is the cover girl on PEOPLE magazine, a special issue devoted to "The 50 Most Beautiful People" that hits newsstands Friday. Next to her large photo are smaller ones of Jennifer Aniston and Josh Hartnett. Other Beautiful People (or BPs, as some newspapers like to call them) on the magazine's 13th annual list: Julia Roberts (her seventh time, a record), and this year's Oscar winners Halle Berry (her sixth time) and Denzel Washington (his fifth). "You know, I could think of a lot worse things to be labeled," Berry, 35, told the Associated Press of the honor. Among the other fabulous faces: Aussie actor Simon Baker, "Animal Planet's" Jeff Corwin, Kirsten Dunst, Alicia Keys, Mandy Moore, Sharon Osbourne, Shakira, Britney Spears, Reese Witherspoon and athletes Tom Brady (Super Bowl MVP quarterback of the New England Patriots), Olympic speed skater Apolo Ohno, and Olympic bobsledder Vonetta Flowers. But, gripes Thursday's Washington Post, no one from the nation's capital made the cut. "Apparently," reports The Post, PEOPLE editors "subscribe to the theory that politics is show business for ugly folks." PEOPLE assistant managing editor Liz Sporkin, who oversaw this week's issue, apologized to The Post for the slight, and noted, "We do have Mitt Romney. He's running for governor of Massachusetts. He's gorgeous."