Memorable Vintage Photos That Stand the Test of Time
By Sophia Maddox | March 26, 2024
Beautiful British actress Jane Seymour in the early 1970s
If you're a fan of history and vintage photography, you're in for a real treat. These stunning images from days gone by will transport you back in time and give you a unique glimpse into the past. From sultry pin-ups to scandalous celebrity shots, these photographs are sure to tantalize and titillate. So sit back, relax, and join us on a journey through the annals of history as we explore these Vintage Photos That Leave Nothing To The Imagination!
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.
Caroline Munro is an English actress and model known for her many appearances in horror, science fiction and action films of the 1970s
Few actresses have flitted between worlds as well as Caroline Munro. Throughout her career she jumped from genre films like Dracula 1972 A.D. and Starcrash to legit films like the Spy Who Loved Me and she never missed a beat. Her performances never felt like she was phoning it in even when she was sharing the screen with David Hasselhoff while wearing a leather bikini.
While speaking with Den of Geek, Munro explained that she was able to keep her performances so straight forward and spot on throughout her impressive filmography because she saw it all as work, no matter whether she was in a Hammer Horror Film or a picture with Roger Moore:
I don’t think seeing myself in those posters and in photos is something that really connects as part of my own life, and the life of my family. I mean, I recognize myself, of course, but it’s not really part of my own world. The photos don’t represent who I am, really. It’s work.
Farrah Fawcett posing in white, 1970s
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.
Jacqueline Bisset, 1970s
We often hear about "journeyman actors," those performers who go from role to role giving it all they've got, providing an Oscar caliber performance with just a few lines and looks. Jacqueline Bisset is one of those actors. She may be thought of as cheesecake for the viewers at home, but when you break down her filmography it's clear that she's a person who loves to work.
While speaking about filmmaking with Roger Ebert in in 1982, she explained that to her, working on a film isn't just showing up and looking pouty, it's forming a bond with the cast and crew that lasts long after the final cut. She said:
I work hard, and I tend to play hard. I very seldom rest hard. When I am working on a movie, all I want to talk about is the movie. All I want to be with are the movie people. It's like a clan. If I'm asked to people's houses for dinner, I hate to go, because they'll talk about other things... and all I want to talk about is the movie. How a shot was shot. Whether it worked. I think it must sound to other people a lot like somebody discussing golf putts. It's very hard to be interested in a golf putt if it wasn't your putt.
A pretty and young Sally Field in 1975
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.
Cheryl Ladd, 1970s
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.
Stevie Nicks, 1976
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.
Jaclyn Smith in the early 1970s
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.
Catherine Bach as Daisy Duke on The Dukes of Hazard
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.
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
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.
Model Jerry Hall partying at Studio 54 in the 1970s. (Photo by Helmut Newton)
For a few brief years in the 1970s, Studio 54 was THE place to be no matter who you were. It didn't matter if someone was famous or not, if they were in Studio 54 they were someone. The scene in Studio 54 was complete debauchery. Sure, there was dancing and carousing but there was also an unhinged amount of drugs being passed around that no one thought twice about using.
It wasn't out of the ordinary for regular people, or regular people for the New York club scene to run elbows all night with the likes of Jerry Hall and Mick Jagger and not think twice about it. That's what made Studio 54 so cool, if you were there it meant you were someone.
Suzanne Somers of Three's Company in 1978
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
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.
Tanya Roberts, 1982
Has anyone ever worn a loincloth as well as Tanya Roberts? Maybe Christopher Lambert but that's neither here nor there. Roberts has long been a staple of b-movies and genre films, but it's impossible to forget her work on Charlie's Angels and A View To A Kill. In fact, out of all the Bond women she's the one who popped up in the most interesting of places while she was alive.
Roberts knew that she would be facing an up hill battle if she took the role in A View To A Kill, but she knew she would regret it forever if she never appeared in a Bond film. Wouldn't you want to be a part of that legacy? She told the Daily Mail about her mental back and forth before agreeing to take the film:
I sort of felt like every girl who'd ever been a Bond Girl had seen their career go nowhere, so I was a little cautious. I remember I said to my agent, 'No one ever works after they get a Bond movie' and they said to me, 'Are you kidding? Glen Close would do it if she could.' and I thought to myself, well you can have regrets if you wish, but what's the point? At the time I didn't know what I know now, and to be honest, who would turn that role down, really?
The pretty Sharon Tate modeling a Betsey Johnson dress
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.
The grooviness of Dawn Wells in 1970
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.
Jamie Lee Curtis, 1970s
In the 1970s, Jamie Lee Curtis didn't have any prospects. She was fired from a TV show based on a movie starring her father, and her last resort was to star in a little horror movie about a masked killer, it was the last thing she wanted to do but it was the only thing she could do.
Looking back at it now, Curtis' rise from scream queen to legit A-list star seems planned, but while speaking with the NME in 2018 she says it was anything but:
[Halloween] was a little tiny pish of a horror movie shot in 20 days. I’m being honest. I mean, it’s nice that it has a fanbase… I’m not trying to be facetious or cute or clever. Although I do try to do that often… It just bothers me because there’s some feeling that this was some preordained, planned mastermind and that’s just bullsh*t. And John Carpenter will be the first person to tell you. We were making an exploitation slasher movie about killing babysitters. And that’s what it was. Shot in 20 days, shot for nothing. Fast, furious, vicious and what it became really had nothing to do with the intent of the work.
Madonna, 1974
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.
English actress Madeline Smith in the 1970s
When it comes to Hammer Horror films, Madeline Smith is one of the actresses that helped define the studio, and she's one of the few who managed to take the jump from b-movies to legit productions. Following Taste the Blood of Dracula and The Vampire Lovers she went on to play Miss Caruso in Live and Let Die, easily one of the most fun Bond films in the 007 series.
While Live and Let Die may have been her biggest film, it was really just the beginning of her career. She continued acting through the 2000s with roles in film and television, she's especially prominent on British TV where she pops up in pretty much everything from Steptoe and Son to The Steam Video Company. Long live Madeline Smith.
Goldengirl Susan Anton in the 70's
It's hard to ignore Susan Anton, the blonde beauty who broke out in a sci-fi/sports and went on to pop up in just about every TV show of the '80s. Weirdly enough, it wasn't the big screen that made her a big deal, but the small screen.
After working the pageant circuit, Anton went onto star in a series of ads for Muriel Cigars where she sang a jingle and looked cool lightning up, something that an actress wouldn't be allowed to do today.
When the commercials debuted she immediately caught on with the public, and after CBS refused to air the ads for being too sensual the craze that was created by the ban made her an even bigger star.
Actress Pamela Hensley known for the movie Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, 1979
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
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
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
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
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
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.
Charlotte Rampling back in the '70s showing off some leg
This star of the swinging '60s may be an English rose but she it's Italian cinema that thrust her into the spotlight. With Sardinia Kidnapped and Georgy Girl, both filmed in Italy, she found international success that made her a must cast dramatic actress.
So why would a model like Rampling leave England to work in Italy? She said that she just needed to get out of the county:
Italy is the most wonderful country to work in. They so love beauty and they so love what they’re doing, they so love the actual art of filmmaking. I don’t think Fellini’s films or Visconti’s films ever made any money. They just did it for the grand, operatic feeling. It was so different from the way the English and the Americans were working, there was such passion. And me coming from a rather cold Protestant family, I woke up! That was the beginning of things for me, really.
In 1978, Jayne Kennedy broke into the male-dominated world of professional football when she became the first female sportscaster on NFL Today
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.'
Marilu Henner In The '70s For Playing Elaine O'Connor Nardo on the TV show Taxi
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.
Olivia Newton-John’s iconic leather outfit from ‘Grease’
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?
Stevie Nicks back in the 1970s
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.
The groovy Jacqueline Bisset back in the 1970s
Even though Jacqueline Bissett went on to be one of the most dependable character actresses of the 20th century, when she was first getting started in the industry she was really just making sure she got parts so she could score free food.
Bissett says that she didn't start taking acting seriously as a craft until she nabbed a small part in Cul-De-Sac and saw just how important it was to give a performance everything. She said:
I only cared about getting free food in those days. I did a couple of more extra-type things. But the most interesting of the ones I got was a part in a Roman Polanski film called Cul-de-sac. It was really eye-opening and brilliant. He was brilliant. The actors were brilliant. I thought, Golly. This is really interesting. Maybe I could try and be in this business more seriously.'
Freddie Mercury eating soup in bed with his cats, 1987.
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.
