Sarah Jessica Parker:
Sarah Jessica Parker is a highly popular actress frequently described as being beautiful.
Er, not by me she isn't. Sorry, but she just doesn't set my beauty alarms ringing.
She has a lot of things going for her, but I suspect it's at the "below skin-deep" level. As my wife says, SJP plays a much-loved character in a series enjoyed by many people, and because they like the character they're predisposed to like SJP. Furthermore, if the series treats her as if she's beautiful, she's beautiful. People who don't watch the series may not have this impression of her, though, so will introduce less depth or fantasy into their assessment of whether she's beautiful or not.
I can see how many of the (predominantly female) viewers of Sex in the City might want SJP to be beautiful, if only because they may be able to draw conclusions about their own beauty from that. Indeed, it could be that they're right and she is beautiful: so many people seem to think she is that there must be some basis for it — it can't entirely be wishful thinking. Beats me, though.
I have come across other people who, when asked whether they thought SJP was beautiful, confessed that they didn't know what the rest of the world sees in her either. It seems that either you get her beauty or you don't, and I'm in the minority that don't. It's not that I think she's ugly, it's just I don't register her as beautiful.
Yet millions of fans disagree.