"After playing the Queen, I’m desperate not to look like the Queen," she said.

"I just want everyone to look at me and go, ’How could she be the Queen? She doesn’t look anything like her!’ It’s a lot of effort."

Second in the list was Hollywood actress and eternal blonde Goldie Hawn.

Charlotte Rampling was third, followed by Susan Sarandon and 80-year-old Avengers star Honor Blackman.

Joanna Lumley was sixth, Vanessa Redgrave seventh and Lauren Hutton eighth.

Sophia Loren was ninth - still looking so fabulous in her 70s that she recently posed for the famous Pirelli calendar.

Blondie star Debbie Harry, now 61, completed the top 10.

The poll was carried out by the Lakeside Shopping Centre in Essex, with 1,000 people asked to name the most sensational woman over 60.

Top 10

1 Dame Helen Mirren
2 Goldie Hawn
3 Charlotte Rampling
4 Susan Sarandon
5 Honor Blackman
6 Joanna Lumley
7 Vanessa Redgrave
8 Lauren Hutton
9 Sophia Loren
10 Debbie Harry

Majestic Mirren named best actress - Sept 10, 2006
Dame Helen Mirren is the toast of the showbusiness world after being crowned best actress at the Venice Film Festival for her majestic performance in The Queen. The 61-year-old plays the British monarch in the film about the Royal Family’s response to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. (see photos of the Venice Film Festival 2006)

And the actress joked that she had glammed up for Saturday night’s awards ceremony because she was desperate not to be mistaken for the real Queen. In the film she bears a great physical likeness to the monarch, who celebrated her 80th birthday this year, and spends much of the time dressed in sensible tweeds and headscarf.

Referring to her blue evening gown by British designer Eavis and Brown, topped off with glittering Bulgari diamonds, Dame Helen joked: "After playing the Queen, I’m desperate not to look like the Queen. Desperate. It’s pathetic. "I just want everyone to look at me and go, ’How could she be the Queen? She doesn’t look anything like her!’ So it’s been a lot of effort."

Dame Helen was accompanied to the ceremony at the Venice Lido by her film director husband Taylor Hackford. The Queen also picked up a best scriptwriter award for Peter Morgan. His script shows the Queen struggling to understand the national outpouring of grief which greeted Diana’s death in 1997.

A newly-elected Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) is more in tune with the public mood and tries to persuade the Royals to make their grieving public. Accepting his award, Morgan quipped: "Thank you, Tony Blair, for timing your political disintegration with the release of our film."

Mirren’s Emmy-barrassment - Sept 2006
Helen Mirren might have scooped an award for her part in TV drama Elizabeth I but it was her shoes that got her noticed on Emmy night.  The classic British actress nearly tripped on her way to the stage whilst wearing plastic ’stripper’ shoes which she had bought at the last minute, having forgotten her own heels.  ’My real triumph is not going arse over tit’ she laughed on collecting the award.  Mirren has suggested that she may auction the shoes for charity.