Julia Roberts -- the name that spells bankability: Reuters

Steve Gorman

Pretty woman Julia Roberts ranks as Hollywood's most bankable performer, and ''the only woman guaranteed to open a movie on her name alone,'' according to a just-published guide to Hollywood star power.

Roberts, star of such box office hits as Pretty Woman, My Best Friend's Wedding, Notting Hill and Erin Brockovich, is number 1 among five A-plus stars, topping James Ulmer's Hollywood Hot List, (St Martin's Press).

Roberts is reportedly the first woman to gain admission to the so-called US $ 20 million club of Hollywood's highest-paid stars, and is followed by Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson and Bruce Willis.

According to the author, former premiere magazine columnist James Ulmer, the five stars he ranks as A-plus are those ''whose marquee value alone can trigger financing for a film, even if there is no script, director or costars attached. They can also virtually guarantee strong ticket sales for the movie's opening weekend -- the holy grail of feature film distribution.''

Rounding out the top 10 on the hot list are John Travolta at number 6, followed by Brad Pitt, Meg Ryan, Leonardo Di Caprio and Will Smith.

Reflecting the speed with which the landscape of tinseltown changes, portions of the 250-page guide, first published in september, are already out of date. The entry for Russell Crowe, ranked number 54, contains a reference to his summer blockbuster Gladiator as ''just a Roman ruin.''

The rankings are compiled from an industry scorecard that Ulmer has produced for several years as a crib sheat for studio executives, producers, agents and directors.

Ulmer said his scale in ranking a performer's star power, or bankability, goes beyond the commercial success of their past films. Based on box office alone, Carrie Fisher would rank as the world's highest-grossing female star -- her 14 films have collectively raked in 1.4 billion dollars, most of it from the Star Wars movies.

"But she is hardly regarded as the force behind the huge success of Star Wars, says Ulmer. Fisher doesn't even make it to the top 200 on the hot list.

Of the top 10 performers on the hot list, only one -- Tom Hanks -- has won an academy award for acting. He won Oscars for Forrest Gump and Philadelphia. Five others were nominated, and Mel Gibson won Oscars as director and producer of Braveheart.

Notwitstanding the tremendous clout wielded by Roberts, whose last five films grossed more than US $ 100 million in the US, Ulmer noted that female stars remain at a relative disadvantage compared to men. He attributes this, in part, to the fact that women "suffer shorter shelf lives as marquee stars than men do.''

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