50 Stunning Actresses Of The 1970s, Then And Now — And What Became Of Each One

The 1970s produced a generation of actresses who looked like nobody before them and, arguably, nobody since. This collection puts fifty of them side by side - the portrait that made them famous, and the face time made instead. Below is what to look for while you watch, and why this particular decade produces the sharpest then-and-now comparisons of any era.

Why Photographs Taken In The 1970s Still Look Unlike Anything Made Since

There is a quality to a photograph taken in the 1970s that no filter has managed to fake. The lighting is softer. The hair is bigger. Nobody looks like they were assembled by a committee. What strikes you first is not glamour in the old studio sense but personality: a crooked smile, an unfashionable nose, a look that says the woman behind it had opinions.

Three things were happening at once to produce that effect:

• The studio system had collapsed. The contracts that once dictated a star's hair, name and even her husband were gone, and what rushed into the gap was messier and far more interesting.
• Television was minting a new kind of fame. Audiences invited these faces into their living rooms every week for years, which builds a very different attachment than a film seen once.
• Retouching was limited. Publicity stills were worked on, but the tools were physical and the results left the texture of a real face intact.

Some Kept Working, Some Walked Away At The Peak, And A Few Disappeared Completely

These were not distant icons on a silver screen. For millions of viewers they were part of the furniture of growing up, which is why seeing the same faces decades later is such a strange, tender kind of arithmetic.

The women in this collection took every available route. Some are still working steadily. Some walked away at the height of it and never looked back. Some became grandmothers in complete anonymity, which may be the rarest Hollywood ending of all. Jane Fonda belongs to a fourth category entirely - she won two Best Actress Oscars in the decade and then left cinema to build a home-fitness industry from scratch.

The Unfair Vocabulary Problem

Watch this collection back to back with the male stars of the 80s and 90s and one thing becomes impossible to miss. A man who ages visibly gets called distinguished, weathered, characterful. The words applied to a woman of the same age are rarely as generous. It is worth noticing which set of adjectives you reach for as you scroll.

How To Watch The Collection Without Being Fooled By The Hairstyles

The video runs about eight and a half minutes and moves quickly, so the trick is to look at the eyes rather than the hair. Hairstyles date a photograph instantly and will fool you into thinking someone has changed more than they have. Everything else in the Then & Now section works the same way.

Frequently Asked Questions

The Bottom Line

The 1970s were a hinge decade for women on screen, and this collection is the clearest single illustration of it. Watch the video above, then take a look at the actresses of the 80s and 90s to see how quickly the template changed again.