A number of style mavens and magazine polls have attested to Smith's popularity and declared her one of the most beautiful women in the world. The difficult-to-please Mr. Blackwell once named her "The World's Best Dressed Woman". In 1979, McCall's ran a poll of "Whose Face Most Women Would Like To Have". Jaclyn Smith topped the list. A nationwide poll in 1983 conducted by TV Picture Life magazine crowned Smith and Tom Selleck as the "New King & Queen of Hollywood". While friend and actress Jane Seymour may have starred in more TV movies or miniseries, Smith tops the list according to the Nielsen ratings; Smith has more #1 projects than any other actress in Hollywood, and she has often been called the "Queen of the miniseries". Despite this success and popularity, CBS rejected Smith's idea of playing Gone with the Wind author Margaret Mitchell in the movie version of the book Road to Tara. Years later, Shannen Doherty would star in an NBC biopic of Mitchell.
In 1985, McCall's named her as one of America's 10 Best Bodies. People named Smith twice in its annual list of the "Most Beautiful People in the World". In the April 1984 issue of People, Smith was voted as one of the "Ten Great Faces of Our Time". Film producer Robert Evans said that Smith comes closest to perfection in her eyes, hair and facial structure. In 1985, Ladies' Home Journal magazine sampled 2,000 men and women in 100 places in America to determine "America's Favorite Women". Jaclyn Smith came in the top of the list as the "Most Beautiful Woman in America", with Dynasty star Linda Evans coming in second. TV Guide magazine readers voted Jaclyn Smith as the "Most Beautiful Woman On Television" in 1991.
Comic strip artist Sy Barry modeled the luscious Diana Palmer, wife of The Phantom, after Smith. The French band Air was inspired by Smith's Charlie's Angels character Kelly Garrett to record the song "Kelly Watch the Stars" for their critically acclaimed 1998 album Moon Safari, and the track was released as a single.
