Roberts voted most powerful actress

Julia Roberts is the most powerful actress in Hollywood and the third-most powerful woman in the US film industry, according to a list of the 100 most powerful women published Monday by the Hollywood Reporter.

The 10th annual list was bumped from 50 to 100 this yearunderscoringthe fact that there are many more women in positions of power in Hollywood now than when we started the issue a decade ago, said Paula Parisi, editorial director of special issues for the entertainment industry paper.

Universal Pictures president of production Stacey Snidertook the top spotfor taking the studio from last to first in box office market share, breaking thehexof a years-long slump, the daily wrote.

In at number two was Paramount Pictures president Sherry Lansing, with Fox Broadcasting entertainment president Gail Berman taking the fourth spot and her counterpart at CBS, Nancy Tellem, rounding out the top five.

Roberts, who won an Academy Award last year for thetitle rolein Erin Brockovich took the third spot on the list for the second-straight year because her 20-million-dollar-a-movie paycheck gives her the ability to get projects made, the Reporter said.

But beyond the top 100 list, the picture is more grim for women in Hollywood, according to Martha Lauzen, a communications professor at San Diego State University.

In her latest annual study, released in September, she found that things appear to haveplateauedover the past three years, with women holding considerably fewer than 50 percent of Hollywood jobs.

Just 17 percent of the producers, writers, directors, editors and cinematographers working on the 250top-grossingfilms are women, Lauzen found.