Entertaining Vintage Photos That Take Us Back In Time

Suzanne Somers of Three's Company in 1978

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Everyone loved tuning in to watch Suzanne Somers on Three's Company. As Chrissy Snow she didn't just have sex appeal, she completed an comedic ensemble that was perfectly balanced between herself, Joyce DeWitt, and John Ritter. Unfortunately, ABC didn't understand her worth.

Throughout her run on the show Somers made far less money than co-star John Ritter, so when her contract was up she decided to renegotiate. Unfortunately things didn't go to plan. She told Good Housekeeping:

My contract was up [for] year six and [as I] renegotiated, it became aware that the men were making 10 to 15 times more than me, and I thought, 'I'm on the number-one show, are the men on lesser shows worth 10 to 15 times more?' So, I was fired for asking, 'cause they wanted to make an example... They couldn't have done it today, but that was the climate back then.

"I've got you babe..." Sonny and Cher letting down their hair in a swimming pool.

source: blogspot

As happy as Sonny and Cher may look in this photo, the couple was always on the rocks even when they were at their happiest. It just so happens that they also made their best music when they were on the rocks. It was a catch-22.

Cher says that she didn't realize that her relationship with Sonny was over until after they had their child, Chaz. When the couple broke things off Cher said that it destroyed Sonny because he loved the work they did together:

He was crushed because he wasn’t going to be Sonny of Sonny and Cher anymore. That’s what hurt him. That’s what really hurt him, and that was sad because he loved it more than I did, really, but he wouldn’t give me my freedom.

Madonna, 1974

Source: Reddit

During high school, Madonna was already on her way to stardom even if she didn't know how she was going to make it big. This photo was taken during the production of The Egg. The Super 8 film looks like something that John Waters made on an off day, which is honestly really cool.

This video may be the most artsy thing that Madonna has ever done, and the video shows her spitting up eggs, rubbing them on her face, and then yeah, she has an egg fried on her stomach. It's a classic student film. The whole video, icky as it may be, is a template for Madonna's career. Essentially, if you want to get super famous you have to be ready to have a raw egg cooked on your naked stomach.

The always free-spirited Goldie Hawn showing some leg, 1970s

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Audiences didn't expect much from Goldie Hawn, the doe eyed flower child who was prone to fits of giggles of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. But she turned that lack of belief in her comedic chops into the main piece of her arsenal.

By the 1970s, Hawn was well aware that audiences thought she was just some young, pretty thing, so when she appeared onscreen she made it count. Through Hawn's work of the era it's clear that she's actually a physical comedian in the classical, vaudevillian sense. She takes pratfalls with the best of them, and can speak volumes just by flashing her big, beautiful peepers.

Freddie Mercury eating soup in bed with his cats, 1987.

source: reddit

When Freddie Mercury sings "you're my best friend" with that voice that could only come from rock royalty the listener assumes he's talking about one of his band members or even his ex-fiancé. But it's just as likely that he was speaking about his cats.

Mercury absolutely loved his cats, so much so that when he was on tour he would call them from his hotel room so he could talk to them on the phone. Mercury's personal assistant explained how these feline phone calls went down:

He’d get to a hotel, we’d dial through and he really would talk to his cats. Mary [Austin] would hold Tom and Jerry in turn up to the receiver to listen to Freddie talking. This continued throughout the years with succeeding feline occupants of his houses.

Stevie Nicks back in the 1970s

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In the 1970s, there was Stevie Nicks and then there was everyone else. Not only was she the witchy frontwoman of Fleetwood-Mac, but she had a kind of mystique that you don't just get from being a singer or an actress.

Nicks brought something new to rock music in an era full of overblown stadium rock bands running on pure testosterone. The Mac was one of the most successful groups of the era, but thanks to the feminity of Nicks and keyboardist/singer/songwriter Christine McVie the group brought more nuance to their music than many of the other platinum groups of the era.

Even through the group's ups and downs they've managed to mystify listeners with their sun soaked, pop rock goodness, and we've got Nicks to thank for leading the way.

Catherine Bach as Daisy Duke on The Dukes of Hazard

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It's impossible to separate Catherine Bach from Daisy Duke, the denim short wearing cousin who can drive just as fast as them Duke Boys while looking ten times as better. However, as Bach would say it she was nothing like what the producers initially wanted.

While casting The Dukes of Hazzard producers were searching for a "Dolly Parton type," something that Bach doesn't really fit. She told Fox:

It’s funny because around that time, my agency had fired me and I hadn’t gone out in an interview for two years. According to them, I was too exotic looking... My husband at the time was very connected with show business and worked with Bob Clark, who was writing with the show’s creator, Gy Waldron. He must have told him my stories because Bob called me and said, 'I’m working on this project and I’ve been thinking about you. I bring you up about your stories. I would love for you to try out for this role, Daisy Duke...' After I did my reading during the audition, there was total silence. I thought, 'Oh no, they didn’t like what I did.' Then everyone, we’re talking about 30 people, got up and started clapping. They just connected with my vision of how this part should be played. Two weeks later I was on a plane to Georgia.

A pretty and young Sally Field in 1975

Source: Reddit

Can you imagine a world where Sally Field wasn't one of the most famous people on the planet? Well that's what life was like in the early '70s. At the time she was mostly known for playing Gidget and the Flying Nun. Both of those shows were hits, but they didn't make Sally Field an It Girl or anything.

The one-two punch that proved Sally Field had what it took to make her a star was 1976's Sybil and the next year's Smokey and the Bandit. While those films are completely opposite one another they show her entire range of talent. She's super dramatic and all over the place in Sybil, and she got to be sexy and funny in Smokey. It really was a win-win.

Those two films opened up the world to Sally Field and from there on out everyone knew her name.

The pretty Sharon Tate modeling a Betsey Johnson dress

Source: Reddit

No matter how beautiful Sharon Tate looks in a photo or in her films there's always going to be a sadness with her. Cut down before she even hit her prime by the hopped up crazies in the Manson family, Tate just wanted to create a family, something that she was in the middle of doing in August 1969 when Tex Watson and a few Manson girls broke into their mansion.

At the time, Tate was married to Roman Polanski, a director whose star was only rising following the release in Rosemary's Baby. He was primed to take Hollywood by storm and to raise a beautiful family with Tate, but that never came to pass. Following Tate's murder Polanski fell into a downward spiral of drugs and alcohol, and Tate became the poster girl for the end of the hippie generation.

Raquel Welch in a publicity photo for the movie Hannie Caulder (1971)

Source: Reddit

In the early '70s, Raquel Welch could do anything she wanted but rather than take basic roles that just focused on her looks she took a bunch of left turns and off-kilter roles that make her career all the more interesting.

With Haunie Caulder Welch took the role of the western wife but she turned it on its head. Following the loss of her entire family she picks up a gun and employs a bounty hunter to help get her revenge.

Following her work in the '60s, Welch made it a point to take on roles like this. Her turns in Myra Breckinridge and Kansas City Bomber, along with Hannie Caulder, took her from a bombshell to a legit character actress. This role was Welch taking her career into her own hands.

Morgan Fairchild was known In The '70s For Playing Jennifer Pace on the soap opera Search for Tomorrow

Source: Reddit

Morgan Fairchild may be famous for her soap opera roles, but to hear her tell it when she was initially auditioning for roles in the early '70s she was turned down again and again for being too elegant.

So she gave up. Or sort of gave up. Fairchild was poached by Eileen Ford to work as a model, and wouldn't you know it through Ford she was asked to audition for Search For Tomorrow, although things didn't initially go as planned:

I was told, ‘Okay, this is a big break for us, we’re trying to break into the soap opera market and you are our one person who can talk.’ So I went over and I auditioned and I didn’t get it. But they called right back and said, ‘Oh, we had somebody we hired to play the b*tch a few weeks ago and she’s not working out, we want to hire Morgan for that.’ So I replaced someone to go on as Jennifer Pace on Search, and it was just kind of the luck of the draw.

The grooviness of Dawn Wells in 1970

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Even if she never took another role, even if she disappeared off the planet after 1967, her role as Mary Ann on Gilligan's Island made her a sensation. She was the apple in the eye of every teen and pre-teen boy and she helped create the question: Are you a Ginger or a Mary Ann?

Even though there was a versus quality to these two characters and actors, that wasn't the case between the women behind the roles: Dawn Wells and Tina Louise. After Wells' untimely death in 2020, Louise spoke out abould the kindness Wells showed her while they were working on the show. She wrote:

I will always remember Dawn’s kindness to me. We shared in creating a cultural landmark that has continued to bring comfort and smiles to people during this difficult time. I hope that people will remember her the way that I do — always with a smile on her face.

Farrah Fawcett posing on her bike in 1977

Source: Reddit

No one made the '70s their own as much as Farrah Fawcett. She was that decade. From her single season on Charlie's Angels to the poster showing her in a red one piece that made its way to the wall of every bedroom in the suburbs, she was a glorious golden goddess of the groovy era.

More so than her work on Charlie's Angels, this poster defined the decade. Her hair and her tan became must haves for every would-be California girl. She wasn't just some actress, she was Farrah. In the '80s she moved on to more serious work, but it was really in the '70s when she changed the face of culture and we'll always remember her for it.

A most groovy Raquel Welch, 1970

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It's insane to think that anyone wouldn't see Raquel Welch and want to change her to fit a specific mold. She's clearly a star, and from the moment she appeared onscreen it was clear that she had it.

That being said, Welch told Men's Health that when she inked her first deal with 20th Century Fox they wanted to change her name because it was too, well, something:

I signed with them and almost immediately they wanted me to change my name. They came to me and said, 'We have the solution. We figured it all out. You’re going to be Debbie Welch.' I think they were paranoid that Raquel sounded too ethnic. And I thought, maybe I should be more paranoid than I am. But I wasn’t raised thinking of myself or my background as particularly exotic. I felt very American and middle of the road. I knew that I had a little salsa in my blood, but on my mother’s side there was the whole English heritage.

Claudia Cardinale in the film Once Upon A Time in the West

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Claudia Cardinale, also known as the "Most Beautiful Italian Girl in Tunisa," may not have been a massive star in America but she took Europe by storm. Cardinale was clearly the muse of directors like Fellini and Visconti, but her turn Marie Sarrazin in The Legend of Frenchie King paired her with another European star - Brigitte Bardot.

The film may not have been well received but it gave audiences a chance to see these two beautiful women on screen together in a western was a total boon. Following in the tradition of Spaghetti Westerns, Cardinale used her sexuality to excite the audience and boy did it work. Critics may not have adored this film but the audience said, "Bellissimo!"

Actress Pamela Hensley in the movie Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, 1979

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Buck Rogers in the 25th Century shouldn't have happened. It was over the top, it was camp, and it was absolutely bonkers. Created by Glen A. Larsen, the guy behind Battlestar Gallactica, the series was another big budget science fiction series for ABC, a type of show that they weren't known for succeeding at in the 70s.

For as outlandish as the show was it had sex appeal that was aimed right at teenage boys thanks to Pamela Hensley. She spent most of the series draped in clothing that accentuated every curve, and in some cases she didn't wear anything at all and instead opted to be obscured by steam or a bath. It was a seriously risquee show for the time. Unfortunately the series was canceled after two seasons. We would have loved to spend more time with Princess Ardala.

Actress Susan Dey, 1972

Source: Reddit

Susan Dey has come a long way from her early years singing on The Partridge Family. Dey rarely talks about her time on the show, some of which likely stems from not wanting to talk about a thing she made when she was a teenager, but also because at the time she was in capital L love with star David Cassidy.

Everyone on set knew that Dey had a massive crush on Cassidy, even co-star and Cassidy's real life stepmother tried to dissuade Dey from following through with the romance, but she didn't listen. Dey had to watch as Cassidy flirted with fans and hooked up with girls in his trailer, something that really destroyed her for a while.

Dey and Cassidy have since made up, sort of. He wrote about hooking up with her in his memoir and she didn't go nuclear on him, so that's something, right?

Angie Dickinson as Sergeant Suzanne “Pepper” Anderson in the police drama Police Woman broke new ground with its portrayal of a woman in a leading role and as a police officer

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Everywhere you look today there are women rocking cop uniforms on television and film and no one bats an eye, but that wasn't always the case. When Angie Dickinson picked up her shield and gun in 1974's Police Woman she was going about it totally solo.

Dickinson had been kicking around Hollywood for years in supporting roles but with Police Woman she finally stepped into the spotlight, and it didn't take much for her to accept the role. She told CBS:

David Gerber was the producer, and he said, 'Don't you wanna be a household name?' I realized I wanted to be a household name! There was a surge [of women joining the police force]. And a lot of fan letters with that – I became a cop because of you.

Bernadette Peters didn't make a splash as a movie star until 1976, in Mel Brooks' Silent Movie

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Known around the world for her theatrical roles and booming voice, Bernadette Peters is amazing at any age. Her voice, her look, and her whole vibe harkens back to the Golden Age of Hollywood which isn't really what we think about when we're talking about the 1970s in film.

So what was it that made Peters throw herself into a style that looks back much more than it focuses on the now? While speaking with Vulture Peters explained that the grandeur of old Hollywood is really what did it for her:

I did sing popular music in high school, but what happened is that I discovered the choices as a performer that would allow me to live emotionally where I wanted to live. Every performer has to make that discovery. Where that realization comes from, I don’t know. Part of it must be what I was exposed to as a kid. When I would come home from school at four o’clock, I’d watch the Million Dollar Movie on television — it was always a classic musical. The beauty of that work was incredible. Hollywood was maybe a little more concerned with the overall visual beauty of the film in those days.

Blondie, 1978

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Has there ever been anyone cooler than Debbie Harry? The answer is no. Harry and her band Blondie turned punk music upside down with their disco and pop inspired anthems that showed audiences that you didn't have to play as fast as possible to be tough. That you could be sultry and fun and still be interesting.

As different as Blondie is from the rest of the New York bands from the late '70s, Harry emphasizes the fact that none of the bands really sounded the same, and that it took Blondie a few years to find their sound:

We were very minimal when we started, very rough-edged. So, in that respect, we fit in. But I think every band was totally different and that was kind of curious for the scene... Blondie maybe wasn’t as fully developed as those bands were. But we all had the same kind of philosophy, and that’s more what the punk period was about—wanting change, having a more urban kind of sensibility and some weird kind of wit.

British actress Jenny Agutter looking groovy in the 1970s

Source: Reddit

Jenny Agutter may not be a household name in America, but across the pond she's something like royalty. She's been on the big and small screens across the western world for decades, popping up in everything from The Six Million Dollar Man to Logan's Run (the movie), to MCU's The Avengers.

Her workman like ability to take on role after role was built over time, but Agutter didn't start thinking about keeping her head down and moving through roles until after she found fame as a child. It was only then that she realized that what's hot today may not be hot tomorrow and it's best to keep moving. She told The Guardian:

One moment you’d be everyone’s favorite and another moment no one would know who you were. I realized that it was very transitory and very ephemeral. A lot of children in films get treated like the whole weight of the work lies on their shoulders. It doesn’t.

Carly Simon, 1971

Source: Wikimedia Commons

You're so vain, you probably think this photo's about you. Simon had yet to hit it big in 1971, but not for lack of trying. She broke into the music industry with her sister Lucy but nothing really came out of that. It was when she finally went solo and released "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be," her first top 10 hit.

The single helped Simon win the Best New Artist award at the Grammy's that year and it primed her for her biggest success. With the one two punch of "Anticipation" and "No Secrets," Simon proved herself to be one of the most powerful songwriters of her generation.

It's hard to encompass Simon in just a few lines, even her out put in the '70s is massive. She worked on a Bond movie, had a ton on Top 10 hits and even worked with Mick Jagger. She really did have an incredibly charmed decade.

Cheryl Ladd, 1970s

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It can't be easy to fill Farrah Fawcett's shoes. Not only was she one of the first of three Charlie's Angels, but she's Farrah Fawcett! She's an icon of the 1970s. Cheryl Ladd had the tough task of taking over for Fawcett on the second season of the beloved series by playing the little sister of Fawcett's character.

As Ladd tells it, without the option of playing Fawcett's sister she wouldn't have taken the role because it would have been too daunting:

I didn’t know how it would work for anybody to try to replace her. I mean, what a task, right? [Aaron Spelling] said, ‘Why couldn’t you be Jill’s little sister and you’re already part of the family?’ I said, ‘I’m in!’ It was brilliant.

Deidre Hall may be best known for her role as Dr. Marlena Evans on the soap Days of Our Lives, a role she took on 1976

Source: Google

In the 1970s, if you were on a soap opera you were basically a rock star and Deidre Hall was definitely a rock star. As Dr. Marlena Evans on Days of Our Lives, Hall lived through some of the craziest storylines that viewers could imagine: she fell in love, she broke up couples, and she was possessed by a demon.

As crazy as that sounds, possession was hot in the '70s thanks to The Exorcist so it made perfect sense that Hall would end up floating with freakydeaky eyes on daytime TV. According to Hall, she wasn't sure about the concept but had faith in Days of Our Lives writer Jim Reilly:

I just thought, you know what, Jim is a devout Catholic. And this is a thing — it's a passion project for him. And I thought it would be safe in his hands. So the only thing that I said at that point was, I would like to make sure that we do it well, that we really reached in deep and we put the money and the time and the effort into it, and so we do it well. And they did and it was magnificent.

In 1978, Jayne Kennedy broke into the male-dominated world of professional football when she became the first female sportscaster on NFL Today

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Jayne Kennedy didn't just break through the glass ceiling to become the first sportscaster for the NFL, she smashed through it with a hammer and never looked back. But when the job opportunity to audition for the job was offered to her she was certain that she wasn't going to be talking football with the players. She explained:

Sports had always been a huge part of my life. I knew I could do the job, and I knew it would have been a passion project for me: to be able to work with all of these sports figures who had been my heroes. I managed to convince the head of sports talent for CBS out of New York to give me an audition. When I walked in, there were 15 girls there with blond hair and blue eyes, and then there was me. I said 'Here we go again. I’m never going to get this job, I’m not what they’re looking for.'

Jaclyn Smith in the early 1970s

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As one of the first three cast members on Charlie's Angels, Jaclyn Smith had the uphill battle and good luck of being on the ground floor of one of the most beloved series of all time.

While the rest of her co-stars came and went over the course of five years, Smith stuck around for the entire run of the series, something that she wanted to do because of the way that the series promoted pure girl power. She told The Hollywood Reporter:

Really, Charlie's was Aaron. He liked bright, happy, popping. He said it was 'mind candy.' It wasn't meant to be Shakespeare... The lighting was not shadows and moody. Get into their faces, get into their eyes, really look at these girls... [Critics] gave us no value... [Our characters] were emotionally and financially independent. We were making our way. We were strong — we did a lot of our stunts. We had each other's backs. I never thought of it as we were exploited in any way.

Loni Anderson as Jennifer Marlowe, the intelligent and sexy receptionist on WKRP in Cincinnati. She played the role from 1978 to 1982

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WKRP in Cincinnati was a weirder show than we give it credit for. The series followed the quirky DJs at a radio station, something that no other sitcom was focused on putting on the air. It turned out that a lot of people wanted to watch the day to day office goofs of a bunch of music fans - and they really wanted to see what Jennifer Marlowe was up to.

Presented as a blonde bimbo, Loni Anderson turned the character into the glue that held the series togeter. She was secretly sly and she knew how to use her looks to her advantage to get the job done. Most importantly she was a laugh riot.

Anderson's work on the show paved the way for hilarious beauties like Lake Bell and Erin Haynes who both cranked up Anderson's sultry physical comedy to its extremes in the 2000s.

Marilu Henner In The '70s For Playing Elaine O'Connor Nardo on the TV show Taxi

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Taxi is easily one of the greatest sitcoms that's ever come out of the 20th century. Not only does it still hold up, but it introduced audiences to some of the funniest character actors of the day while laying the template for every sitcom, successful or not, that followed.

Henner wasn't like the rest of the cast of Taxi. Aside from being one of the few women on the show she also happened to be drop dead gorgeous, something that made her extremely recognizable. Henner says that she enjoyed the fame that came with the series, but wished that she could be on the show without all the accolades. She told Roger Ebert:

Sometimes, though, I wish they would ignore me. Sometimes I look like myself, and sometimes I go out of the house looking like a mess and when, people ask me if I'm Marilu Henner I'm ashamed to admit it. In the grocery store the other day, I just said, No, but thanks for the compliment. I think she's very attractive.

Naturally beautiful Lindsay Wagner, 1974

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The thing about The Bionic Woman is that it was never meant to be its own series. As Wagner tells it, the series was a fluke based off of a huge two part episode that pulled on the heartstrings of the audience so well that they demanded more of the character.

Initially, Wagner's character was meant to die in a skydiving accident but she was so popular with the audience that she was brought back to life with bionic implants in time for the second season of The Six Million Dollar Man, something that Wagner is extremely happy about. She explained:

It was the beginning of the women’s movement and they were creating a female superhero, which hadn’t been done before except in comic books. The fact that I wanted to keep her very human, that was my contribution was playing her very human, because she was a human... I wanted kids to be comfortable and just have the sense they are cared about, so that was what I contributed to the initial episodes was the way I played her. But the fact that a powerful woman was being created for television, that was a huge part of it.

Olivia Newton-John’s iconic leather outfit from ‘Grease’

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Who can forget the final moments of Grease when Olivia Newton-John steps into the high school carnival not just as a Pink Lady, but as a leather goddess complete with cigarette and hair done to the 9s.

For teenage boys everywhere, the outfit was life changing, but for Newton-John the whole thing was nearly a fiasco. Not only was the outfit so skin tight that she had to be sewn into it, but she couldn't use the bathroom while filming the scene for risk of destroying her costume. Today, the pants are not only still around but they sold at auction for more than $400,000. Do you think the pants are on display somewhere? Or is some very wealthy Grease fan being sewn into them at this very moment? 

Beautiful British actress Jane Seymour in the early 1970s

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Jane Seymour has always been in her prime. This gorgeous English actress who's been acting since the 1970s never seems to slow down and she never seems to age. We don't know how she continues to find the energy to keep working the way she does, but we do know how she keeps looking so young - an intense skin care routine, baby.

While speaking with People Magazine she was open about the care she puts into making her skin look as youthful as it did when she was just getting started in the industry, and she explained why she's never had a facelift (and it's not the reason you think). She explained:

As of now, I have chosen not to have a facelift — but I have nothing against any of it, nothing. Almost everyone I know is doing it and they're really thrilled with the results. I think it's great, and if I felt that somebody could do something that wouldn't change my face, and I would have the results where I would look just like me, I would do it. I'm not saying I'd never do it, but I haven't done it yet.

Stevie Nicks, 1976

Source: Reddit

Even though Stevie Nicks changed the face of rock n roll and scored some of the biggest hits of the '70s, she still fell prey to the demons of excess found in her jet set lifestyle. Of course there was the serial dating of everyone in the band, but there was also the copious amounts of drugs on hand at every opportunity.

Sultry and enigmatic, Nicks' drug abuse began as a private escape from the whirlwind that followed The Mac everywhere they went. She and Christine McVie went so far as to buy their very own "beautiful coke bottles" that they wore everywhere they went for whenever they needed a bump. This cute partying spiraled out of control almost immediately.

Nicks' first step into the downward spiral of drug addiction happened at a party before the Rumours tour kicked off when she began a 48 hour binge that left her with her contact lenses fused to her eyes, nearly leaving her blind. Nicks escaped the holds of addiction, but it took her decades to leave the "beautiful coke bottles" behind.

Winter Wear, Manuela Boraomanero (left) and Emanuela Beghelli holiday in the Italian ski resort of Cortina d'Ampezzo, March 1976

source: slim aaron

As fashions changed in the late '70s from the flower child chic that made up much of the early parts of the decade to a more preppie look that came to define the '80s, viewers at home received a first hand look at the changing of the guard through fashion magazines of the era.

In 1976, as one style moved in while the other moved out, it was clear that something was happening even if designers weren't sure what it was. Take the leggings both of these models are wearing. They're functional but they still have some of the funky fringe and far out designs of the '60s in their DNA. While the top halves of the outfit would fit perfectly in a Duran Duran video.

Both looks would come around again, although they'd never mix quite the same way.