A Look at Last Year’s ‘Most Fascinating Women’

The latest group of women profiled on the CBS special “Ladies’ Home Journal’s Most Fascinating Women of ‘99” includes three actresses, two singers, an athlete, a novelist, an inspirational mom and four potential first ladies.

Roma Downey, a former “Fascinating Woman,” hosts the hourlong special, which features interviews with Jodie Foster, Susan Sarandon, Lisa Kudrow, Aretha Franklin, Christina Aguilera, soccer star Mia Hamm, “Harry Potter” novelist J.K. Rowling and Linda Armstrong, the mother of cyclist Lance Armstrong, as well as Ernestine Bradley, Laura Bush, Cindy McCain and Tipper Gore, the wives of presidential hopefuls.

“We are in our fourth year [on TV],” says Susan Winston, an executive producer and co-writer of the show, which airs tonight at 10. “We have agents and managers calling us and saying, ‘Don’t you think so and so should be honored?’ ”

Winston and her partner, Dan Funk, work in conjunction with the Ladies’ Home Journal and yield primarily to the magazine’s editorial board.

“They are good arbitrators of who women look up to,” says Winston, who also conducted the interviews. “We went out to get people who really made a statement.”

A real coup this year for Winston was Foster, whom she had been trying to get for three years. “She is a hard interview to get,” says Winston. She said it was easier this year because the actress has her latest movie, “Anna and the King,” to promote.

“But this is a woman who is not big on receiving accolades,” Winston says. “I think it is a tribute to Ladies’ Home Journal that after four years, the program has established itself as something that takes a serious look at people who are positive role models.”

* “The Ladies’ Home Journal’s Most Fascinating Women of ‘99” airs tonight at 10 on CBS.