Hidden Stories Unravel The Creepy Side Of The '60s & '70s
By Sarah Norman | September 4, 2023
Mackenzie Phillips Had A 10-Year Intimate Relationship With Her Dad
Warning, these photos will conjure chills and goosebumps from an intense feeling of nostalgia.
Take a closer look, if you dare, because the stories behind these photographs will show a different side to the nostalgic past than you already know.
The too hot for TV photos that we've collected here each tell a story that will change the way you think about some of the biggest stars of the era. As you'll soon find out, more often the more wholesome someone's image was the darker their private life turned out to be.
The following stories and photos are for mature eyes only. They'll shock and titillate, and most of all they'll make you see the groovy era in a completely different light. Proceed with caution...
Mackenzie Phillips may have starred in American Graffiti and One Day At A Time, but her personal life was far from perfect. For most of her young life, this gifted actress was dealing with dark secrets. Not only was she shooting cocaine on a regular basis, but she was hiding a romantic relationship that could have destroyed her career.
On the night before her wedding to Jeff Sessler, Phillips alleges that she and her father - John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas - got so high that she blacked out. When she woke up the two were in the middle of drugged out intercourse. She says that neither of them spoke about the encounter for months. As mentally scarring as this moment was, Phillips says that the two carried on with their incestuous relationship while touring as the New Mamas and The Papas.
While speaking out the dark relationship with Larry King, Phillips said that her father didn't see a problem with their coupling because they were both adults. She explained:
My father lived in a world of his own creation, there’s a fine line between genius and insanity as we all know. He tried very hard to live a life of his choosing… I think that to him if sex happened between a father and a daughter and no one protested where’s the problem?
Phillips has never changed her story, but the rest of her family says that she's either misremembering the events or simply making them up, with half sister Bijou Phillips going so far as to say that Mackenzie ruined her relationship with their father through the allegations.
William Frawley, 'I Love Lucy's Fred Mertz - A Bit Of A Jerk
Out of the four main characters on I Love Lucy, Fred Mertz was definitely the grouchiest. Played by William Frawley, the Ricardo's landlord was every bit the classic sitcom grump. He pushed the story forward with aplomb, and it seemed like someone was always getting the last laugh on him.
Even though he's extremely funny on the series, Frawley was a well known jerk. He was big drinker who, in spite of his acting prowess, could never make up for how unpleasant he was offstage. It's not just that he was a big drinker, Frawley brawled with Academy Award nominee Clifton Webb in 1928, and by 1951 he was such a notorious drinker and hot head that no one wanted to work with him.
So how did he get his career defining role on I Love Lucy? He essentially begged Lucy and Desi Arnaz for a job. The couple wanted to hire Gail Gordon but he was unavailable, and here was Frawley coming to them hat in hand. Lucy and Design agreed, but they said that if he misbehaved at all he'd be thrown off the show with no remorse. Frawley, ever the contrarian, agreed, but he had a clause written into his contract stating that if the New York Yankees (his home team) made it to the World Series he would receive time off to watch the games. The Yankees made it to the big show seven times while I Love Lucy was in production, and Frawley was given his time off.
'Keep On Truckin,' The Hippie Slogan R. Crumb Regrets Coining
Is there anything as emblematic of the 1960s as "Keep On Truckin'?" The phrase, dreamt up by R. Crumb became a hippie slogan for the need to continue moving on no matter what life throws at you, but Crumb has no idea why the saying became so popular. Not only did Crumb not give consent for his work to be reproduced, but he thinks the phrase is just straight up dumb.
The phrase has appeared on posters, in songs, on bumper stickers and t-shirts, most likely because it's such a empty phrase - it can mean nothing and everything. Crumb took the phrase from the song “Truckin’ My Blues Away” by Blind Boy Fuller from 1936. Crumb adapted the line to a one-page strip, which appeared in the first issue of the famous underground comic book Zap Comix, showing a group of men strutting across the country while repeating the phrase, "keep on trucking'."
Hippies immediately glommed onto the phrase and it appeared in songs by the Grateful Dead and on merch printed by anyone with a screen printer. This angered Crumb to no end. He said:
I became acutely self-conscious about what I was doing. Was I now a ‘spokesman’ for the hippies or what? I had no idea how to handle my new position in society… Take Keep on Truckin’ for example. Keep on Truckin is the curse of my life. This stupid little cartoon caught on hugely. There was a D.J. on the radio in the seventies who would yell out every ten minutes: ‘And don't forget to KEEP ON TR-R-RUCKIN’!’ Boy, was that obnoxious… I didn't want to turn into a greeting card artist for the counter-culture!
Jungle Pam - Drag Racing's Sweetheart Of The Funny Car Track
Sure, a lot of people came to the race track to watch funny cars tear down the asphalt, but even more people flocked to the track to check out babes in tight fitting short shorts that walked up and down the track. The most famous of them all was "Jungle" Pam, the sweetheart of the funny car track.
Known for her thigh high boots and bright smile, Pam was the right hand woman of Jungle Jim Lieberman. She was a showman at heart, and happily put herself on display while checking Jim's oil and moving his car into place before the starting pistol went off.
Pam started working with Jim a few weeks before her high school graduation. She met him in while hanging out around west Chester, and she decided to put off school for a while to pack her bags and hit the drag racing circuit. She quickly captured the audience's attention while learning how to work on the job.
By the late '70s there were new rules in drag racing that kept Pam off of Jim's team and the two drifted apart. Sadly, in 1977 Jim passed away in a car accident and Pam went back to real life. Although he occasionally makes appearances with the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA).
Wilt Chamberlain's Love Life - Did He Sleep With '20,000' Women?
Let's just put it out there, 20,000 sexual partners is A LOT even for one of the biggest stars of the NBA. However, according to Chamberlain the number is accurate. In his 1991 book, A View From Above, Chamberlain claims that he slept with 20,000 women over the course of his lifetime, which is one pretty impressive statistic.
We don't doubt Chamberlain's prowess in the bedroom, but is that number even possible when you're playing hundreds of basketball games a year (let alone training, working out, and sleeping)? To sleep with 20,000 women, Chamberlain would have had to start his count when he was 15 years old, and then sleep with 1.4 women every day until the age of 55. According to childhood friend Tom Fitzhugh, Chamberlain was a virgin during high school which increases the amount of women he'd have to sleep with to his his number.
Even if Chamberlain were having threesomes on the regular, the number is still not plausible. We're sure he slept with plenty of women in his time, but the 20,000 number just didn't happen.
What Really Became Of Mikey, The Life Cereal Commercial Kid?
Did you hear about Mikey from the Life cereal commercial? He ate Pop Rocks ad drank Coca-Cola and his head exploded... or something like that. If you were watching TV in the 1970s then you saw the "Mikey Likes It" commercial at just about every ad break. The commercial featured a cute, freckled kid named Mikey who hardly eats anything. The one thing he does enjoy is Life cereal.
This was such a popular ad that it ran for 13 years, but Mikey disappeared from television. The rumor is that after ingesting a volatile mix of Pop Rocks and Coca-Cola that he succumbed to a body exploding sugar rush. It turns out that Mikey - real name John Gilchrist - is alive and well, even if he was doubled fisting Pop Rocks and Coke.
Gilchrist got out of the entertainment industry and started working for Madison Square Garden as their director of media sales - a position that put him back in the commercial world, just on the other side of the screen.
The Oompa Loompas Were African Slaves In The 1964 Book
Those cute little orange guys in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory weren't always cute little orange guys who were unceremoniously ripped away from their homeland by an insane candy maker. In the original novel by Roald Dahl they were actually slave laborers imported from Africa.
"Yikes," you're probably saying right now, and if that's the case you're absolutely right. Yikes. A biography of Dahl's explains the author's reasoning:
In the version first published, [the Oompa-Loompas were] a tribe of 3,000 amiable black pygmies who have been imported by Mr. Willy Wonka from ‘the very deepest and darkest part of the African jungle where no white man had been before.’ Mr. Wonka keeps them in the factory, where they have replaced the sacked white workers. Wonka’s little slaves are delighted with their new circumstances, and particularly with their diet of chocolate. Before they lived on green caterpillars, beetles, eucalyptus leaves, ‘and the bark of the bong-bong tree.'
However, if you pick up a copy of Dahl's Charlie and Chocolate Factory today you'll notice that no such characters exist. That's because after the outrage over the seriously racist caricatures in Dahl's book he decided it was best to change things up a bit. He explained:
I created a group of little fantasy creatures…. I saw them as charming creatures, whereas the white kids in the books were… most unpleasant. It didn’t occur to me that my depiction of the Oompa-Loompas was racist, but it did occur to the NAACP and others…. After listening to the criticisms, I found myself sympathizing with them, which is why I revised the book.
The 'Manson Girls' Who Were They, And Where Are They Now?
Even if you weren't alive August, 1969, when Charles Manson led his followers to kill Sharon Tate and her friends in the middle of the night in Los Angeles, you know about the Manson Girls. But who are they? Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten were the three main disciples of Manson, and they carried out his wishes with no questions asked.
Atkins was a former dancer who met Manson when she was only 21 years old. She was immediately under his spell, and freely admitted to killing Sharon Tate. After she was sentenced to death, Atkins received a brief reprieve following a change in California law, her role was reduced to life in prison. She passed away from brain cancer in 2009.
Krenwinkle was a former secretary who fell under Manson's allure when she was only 19 years old. She was so enraptured with the cult leader that she eagerly stabbed Leo and Rosemary LaBianca before writing “Death to Pigs” on the wall in the victims’ blood. She's still serving her life sentence in Corona, California, and has since spoken out against the worship of Manson.
Leslie Van Houten was a homecoming queen who met Manson in the late sixties. She was sentenced to life in prison at the California Institute for Women in Corona, California, the same facility that houses Krenwinkel.
There are many other Manson Girls, like "Squeaky" Fromme who continued to communicate with Manson after attempting to assassinate then-President Gerald Ford. After serving a 34-year sentence for the assassination attempt, Fromme was released on parole in 2009.
'Blazing Saddles,' from Stinking Badges To Schnitzengruben
Blazing Saddles isn't just one of the greatest and funniest movies of the '70s, it's one of the most important movies of the 20th century. Mel Brooks' acerbic taken westerns gave audiences references and jokes to make with their friends forever, from "we don't need no stinking badges," to needing a A LOT of dimes, the movie basically formed modern comedy.
Starring Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder, Blazing Saddles is only one of two wildly important (and seriously funny) films that Mel Brooks released in 1974. Along with Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles shows that the comedic auteur was operating at his peak. This laugh a minute western isn't just about the jokes, but it holds up a mirror to society in a way that movies just weren't doing at the time.
The film doesn't let anyone off the hook, and it does everything it can to show people at our best and at our worst - all the while lampooning one of the most beloved genres of the era.
Can You Still Do These 10 Dances From The 1960s?
No decade has produced so many memorable dance crazes as the 1960s. The decade of flower power and the peace and love movement was also an era when just about every teeny-bopper pop song had its own dance. Shows like American Bandstand broadcast the dances across the country, and before long everyone was doing The Watusi, the Mashed Potato, and of course, The Twist.
The Twist is the most well known of these dances, and while it originated in the 1959 song of the same name, it lived on until the mid-60s when parents finally caught on.
The Loco-Motion is another dance craze that's had a longer than you'd think shelf life. Co-written by Carol King in 1962 (yes, that Carol King), the song was written to get a dance craze going, and it worked. People still form a "train" and work their way through the dance floor when it comes on.
The weirdest dance craze from the '60s has to be The Watusi. Named for Africa’s Tutsi people, known for their elaborate dances, the dance first came about thanks to The Orlons and their song "Wah-Watusi," but many more artists jumped on the Watusi wagon - even Batman got in on the fun with his "Bat-Tusi."
Cheryl Ladd A Look At The Charlie's Angel
It couldn't have been easy for Cheryl Ladd to replace Farrah Fawcett on Charlie's Angels, but the multi-talented Ladd flourished on the series and actually stayed on the show for its final four seasons. Ladd's first role was on the animated series Josie and the Pussycats, but she went on to appear in everything from The Partridge Family to The Muppet Show.
Once she was on Charlie's Angels she forged her own path as the funny Angel, and after the show came to an end she released the single "Think It Over" in 1978, earning a gold disc. Ladd wasn't done with acting just yet, she went on to star in more than 30 made-for-TV movies, while popping up on shows like Las Vegas and West Waikiki.
Today, Ladd continues to act but she's added author to her resume with the children’s book The Adventures of Little Nettie Windship in 1996, and a memoir all about her love of golfing called Token Chick: A Woman’s Guide to Golfing With the Boys.
Pam Grier - From 'Foxy Brown' And 'Coffy' To 'Jackie Brown'
Since the 1970s Pam Grier has been the undisputed queen of the blaxploitation movie genre. No matter what movie she's in, she's seriously hot and tough as nails, and she's always had a commanding presence. So where did she become so sought? Growing up the daughter of an Air-Force father, she moved a lot and had to deal with a strict upbringing. She says that she found solace in the great outdoors while playing the organ and piano in a gospel choir.
Her early roles were in the women in prison genre films like The Big Doll House and Women In Cages both debuted in 1971, and The Big Bird Cage was released in 1972, but it's 1973's Coffy that turned her into a star. A year later she starred in Foxy Brown as a woman seeking revenge and using sex as a weapon. The film was a massive box office success, and in spite of critical tsk-tsking, she said that she was proud of her work. In 2012 she explained:
It was the time of the women’s movement, and in order to sell women’s equality—not domination, we’re not trying to castrate anyone or take away a man’s job—just be recognized as equal. And that oppression has ended. We’re now driving and we can vote and our grandmothers and mothers didn’t get a fraction of the opportunities women have today. All we wanted to do was have fun and entertainment and ease that message in underneath like a prompt so it doesn’t hit men over the head and scare ’em, but to show that this is what’s coming!
Lisa Loring As Wednesday- 'Addams Family's Creepy, Cute Daughter
Everyone loves The Addams Family, but the break out character in every era for this creepy and kooky family is Wednesday Addams, the sly young goth girl whose monotone delivery captured the hearts of viewers everywhere when the series premiere in 1964.
Loring, who brought the role to life, was so young when she got the role of Wednesday that she was still learning to read and had to memorize her lines phonetically. At the time of the production, Loring was dealing with more heartbreak than a child should. Her parents divorced before she was born, and she lost her mother to alcohol addiction at a young age.
After The Addams Family came to an end in 1966, Loring found herself in the same post-success blackhole as many of her child star peers. She married at 15, that ended before long, and she married again three more times. Loring went on to appear in the soap opera As The World Turns, as Cricket Montgomery, and she can still be found signing autographs for fans at conventions around the country.
Frontal Mail Exposure - The Sears Catalog Controversy of 1975
Remember the days when the Sears catalogue would come to your house and you'd spend hours going through it, page by page? You'd circle everything you wanted in hopes that your parents or grandparents would see your picks and make you rich in Sears belongings on your birthday? If they were looking through the magazine like you, they also noticed a little something extra in the 1975 edition on page 602.
The photo in question in the 1975 edition of the magazine appeared to show a man's private area, completely exposed and for the whole world to see. At the time this was a huge controversy. Not only was the magazine in every home in America, but it was supposed to be selling things for the entire family, not showing off a model's junk. People lost their minds thanks to this photo.
At the time there was disagreement about what was really in the photo. Was it a printing blemish? A shadow? A watermark? Or was there just straight up a shot of some guy's package in the Sears catalogue? According to the crew at Hoax.com there's no additional material on page 602 of the 1975 Sears catalogue, so maybe it was a printing blemish after all.
Bebe Buell, Rock Star Arm Candy And Liv Tyler's Mom
Rock n roll fans everywhere know about groupies, band-aids, or members of the entourage, whatever you want to call them. Bebe Buell always felt that she was more of a "muse," and less of a groupie. Whatever title you want to put on her, she had several romances with famous musicians, from Mick Jagger and Rod Stewart, to Iggy Pop and Jimmy Page. She was unconstrained by genre, she was in love with talent.
In the 1970s, Buell was moonlighting as a muse/groupie/arm-candy while working as a model with the Ford Agency in New York City before Playboy made her Miss November 1974. After she was dropped by Ford for daring to pose in the buff, Buell was picked up by the Wilhelmina Agency and she didn't miss a beat in front of the camera.
While dating Todd Rundgren off and on from 1972 to 1978, she also had a fling with Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler - who got her pregnant. Buell, Tyler, and Rundgren agreed that it would be best if Rundgren raised the baby (ahem, Liv Tyler) as his own. However, by the time she was 11 she had an inkling that she wasn't of Rudgren stock and asked her mother point blank who her father was.
Buell is still out here modeling and performing with her own band in Nashville, and she even has a biography about her wild life called Rebel Heart: An American Rock And Roll Journey.
Where Are They Now? The Original 'Lost In Space' Cast
"Danger Will Robinson!" just the phrase makes us want to get Lost In Space with the Robinson family. Starring Guy Williams and June Lockhart, as well as Marta Kristen, Bill Mumy, and Angela Cartwright, the series that aired from 1965 to 1968 holds a special place in the hearts of Boomers and sci-fi heads everywhere.
Marta Kristen went on to appear in television shows like Murphy Brown and Strange Voices, but her role in Lost In Space is still the biggest thing she's done. Meanwhile, June Lockhart has appeared on everything from Full House to Beverly Hills 90210 and Grey's Anatomy. She even won a Tony for her performance in For Love or Money,
Mark Goddard, the intrepid pilot, went onto appear on television in bit roles, and even turned up on General Hospital with June Lockhart. Most of the actors, including Jonathan Harris, never matched the success of Lost In Space, but that's okay because they gave us one of the campiest trips to outer space of the 1960s.
How The 'Whipped Cream' Girl Sold 6 Million Herb Alpert Records
To sell six million copies of an album in 1965 was no small feat. It took great tunes, determination, radio play, and a smoking hot cover photo. With Whipped Cream & Other Delights, Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass combined sexy salsa influenced tunes with an erotic cover that changed the way mid-century music lovers thought about this sweet treat.
The cover features model Dolores Erickson slathered in whipped cream, and licking her finger while holding a rose. It's a classic album cover that definitely sent America's blood pressure through the roof. However, things aren't what they seem with this album cover.
Photographed by Peter Whorf, Erickson isn't actually covered in mounds of whipped cream - most of what you're seeing is a fluffy white blanket. To get the perfect shot, Erickson posed in a strapless bikini while wrapped in the blanket. Because real whipped cream melts under lights, Whorf sprayed cans and cans of shaving cream on her body, and just a little whipped cream was put on her head and finger. Erickson later said that she had a "lovely time" working with Whorf, although she was shocked when she saw the final photo. She claims that she actually the prints from her husband, but with six million units moved of this LP he probably saw the photo at some point.
Heather Thomas - 'Fall Guy' Gal And Early '80s Poster Pinup
Heather Thomas' career may not have lasted beyond the 1980s, but her role on The Fall Guy as well as her many pin up posters have turned her into an icon - at least in the memories of every young man who lived through the era. After graduating from UCLA in 1976, Thomas wanted to write and direct films, but she was quickly cast as Jody Banks on The Fall Guy and rode out the series for its entirety from 1981 to 1986.
Thomas' blonde bombshell look made her perfect for centerfold posters, and she appears in a treasure trove of hot shots, more often than not in a barely-there bikini. Unfortunately, Thomas became addicted to cocaine while filming The Fall Guy. She used the drug to keep her up for the long shoots, and then she coupled the cocaine with diuretic Lasix, a prescription medicine that's meant to treat fluid retention. Used improperly it can help someone maintain the "perfect" body, but it can kill too.
Thomas eventually got clean in 1986, but after a bad marriage, and accident that left her with a set of broken legs she dropped out of the spotlight because she was getting stalked constantly. She explained:
I was getting so stalked. I had one guy climb over the fence with a knife one time. I had these two little girls, and they desperately needed raising, so that was that.
She now works as a writer and activist with the Amazon Conservatory Board and The Rape Foundation while spending time with her family.
Woodstock Fashion - Hippie Chicks And What They Wore
In August, 1969, the Woodstock Festival brought three days of peace and music to upstate New York. While the bands were hot and the people were grooving, the one thing unintended consequence of the festival was the way it changed fashion forever.
The era of flower power was in full swing at Woodstock, bringing hippie fashion to the forefront of the culture. Before Woodstock, you had to be around hippies to know what they looked like, but after hundreds of thousands of people descended on this rural farm they were all over the news. Suddenly, kids in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but a TV were able to see how hippies across the country were dressing.
Tie dye, macrame and crochet were all the looks of the day, as well as hip hugging and tight fitting blue jeans. That may not seem wild, but in the 1960s it was actually pretty far out to war denim. Schools, movie theaters, and restaurants all banned people from wearing blue jeans because they were seen as improper attire for a night out. Hippies embraced this slap in the face of "decent society," and denim's move into mainstream America is now one of the many things that hippies changed in their brief decade in the sun.
Was Ted Nugent A Draft Dodger During The Vietnam War?
He may be rocking and rolling bastion of free speech and the Second Amendment today, but In the 1970s Ted Nugent made a big deal out how he swerved the draft and avoided service in Vietnam, but was he telling the truth or was that just a tall tale?
In an issue of High Times from the 1970s, Nugent claimed that he made himself so revolting to an Army recruiter that no one would want him serving in the military. In 1964, Nugent formed the Amboy Dukes after moving to Chicago at the height of the Vietnam War, and that when he received his draft notice he was just having too much fun playing rock n roll to go fight in another hemisphere. He explained:
I ceased cleansing my body. No more brushing my teeth, no more washing my hair, no baths, no soap, no water. Thirty days of debris build. I stopped shavin’ and I was 18, had a little scraggly beard, really looked like a hippie. I had long hair, and it started gettin’ kinky, matted up. Then two weeks before, I stopped eating any food with nutritional value. I just had chips, Pepsi, beer-stuff I never touched-buttered poop, little jars of Polish sausages, and I’d drink the syrup, I was this side of death, Then a week before, I stopped going to the bathroom. I did it in my pants. poop, piss the whole shot. My pants got crusted up.
However in 2018 Nugent changed his whole story, claiming that he was misquoted. Although if that's true that's quite the misquote. Even if the story he told to High Times wasn't true, he did receive multiple deferments. Initially he received a student deferment, and in 1969 he failed a physical and was assigned a rating of 1-Y which means that he was fit for the military but only in times of “war or national emergency.” In 1971, Nugent was reclassified 4-F, which means he was unfit for military service due to “physical, mental, or moral standards.”
Who Did Warren Beatty Date?
Warren Beatty may be a married man these days - he remains faithful to his wife Annette Benning - but in the '60s and '70s he was a regular Casanova, dating whatever hot young thing he laid his eyes on. It's easier to ask who he didn't date as he was hardly seen without a gorgeous woman on his arm while walking down a red carpet.
Beatty has been with hippie chicks and pop stars, Bond Girls and even his co-stars. In a 2010 biography of Beatty, writer Peter Biskind claimed that the actor bedded down with 12,775 women, which is hard to figure out mathematically. Even if the number is right (which Beatty says it isn't) where would he find the time?
Natalie Wood once claimed that "Warren goes through women on an industrial scale, although he does it with great charm."
While Beatty says that he hasn't slept with more than 12,000 women, he has dated some serious babes in his day. Jane Fonda, Joan Collins, Cher and Natalie Wood have all been under his charms.
Partridge Family Drama - Susan Dey's David Cassidy Crush Went Unrequited
Working in close quarters with someone can create extreme feelings, especially if you're working with a teen heartthrob like David Cassidy. Susan Dey may have been playing Cassidy's sister on the hit sitcom The Partridge Family, but that's as far as their familial relationship went.
Cassidy knew how much women were in love with him, something he used to have some high profile relationships with Gina Lollobrigida and Meredith Baxter, but he never hooked up with Dey. Unfortunately, her love for Cassidy wasn't a private thing. Shirley Jones, Cassidy’s real-life stepmother, knew that Dey had it bad for Cassidy, but she couldn't turn the girl's feelings off. So why didn't the two get together? According to Cassidy, she was just too much of a nice girl for him. He wrote in his memoir:
I find a certain sluttiness very attractive in a woman, and Susan just didn’t have it. She was sweetness and innocence, a good girl, and I couldn’t think of her as anything but my sister.
Although, they did have a one night stand after The Partridge Family stopped filming and Cassidy says he regretted it immediately. It was a sad end to their relationship, and maybe it never should have happened in the first place.
Who Was The Rolling Stones' 'Angie?' Theories About Her Identity
When Mick Jagger sang "Angie" with a forlorn lilt to his voice, was he singing about a real person or is it just a great name? The 1973 acoustic ballad from Goats Head Soup went to #1 in the United States, and it captivated listeners with its tale of woe. But listeners wanted to know about Angie. Who was she? Obviously, there are some theories.
It's believed that Angela Barnett Bowie (David Bowie's first wife) was the muse for the track, although both Mick and Keith have said that's not the case. It's also possible that the song was inspired by Richards' daughter Dandelion Angela Richards. On and off through the years, Richards claims to have written “Angie” for his baby daughter, but he's also said that he picked a name at random, so what's the truth, Keith?
Another name that we can't forget is Marianne Faithfull. She's the inspiration for songs like "Sympathy for the Devil," "You Can't Always Get What You Want," "Wild Horses," "I Got the Blues," "She Smiled Sweetly," "Winter," "She's Like a Rainbow," "100 Years Ago," and "Let's Spend the Night Together," so maybe all the emotion coming from Mick in this song isn't for "Angie," but instead it's for "Marianne."
Would you believe it, if we told you this was Dolly Parton? Most people have no idea she grew up in a one bedroom cabin with 12 children and her illiterate father. Her father was so deeply embarrassed that he couldn't read that it inspired her to open up a library in her hometown after she rose to success. She called it the Imagination Library.
Dolly Parton is a true rags to riches story. She grew up in a one bedroom cabin with 12 brothers and sisters and father who couldn't read. Less than a day after graduating high school in 1964, she was on her way to Nashville to find fame as a country music star. As wildly famous as she's become, Parton initially had to do whatever it took to get by - including eating leftovers from room service bins at hotels.
Parton didn't let poverty destroy her. Instead, she performed more and more, and was eventually discovered by Porter Wagner, a country star who gave her the spotlight she needed to shine. From her time with Wagoner to today, Parton remains a hard working writer and performer, and just because she's in her sixth decade of stardom that doesn't mean she's slowing down. She told Reader's Digest:
I wake up with new dreams every day, so the more I can do to channel that into things that I love to create is healthier for me and probably for everybody around me. And the older I get, the earlier I get up. The second my feet hit the floor, I'm awake. I'm like hurry, hurry. I just love life. And I feel like we ain't got but a certain amount of time anyway. I want to make the most of all of it.
Bo Derek - Behind The Braids And The Bikini
Born Mary Collins, the young Bo Derek wasn't exactly sure about what she wanted to do with her life. Growing up in southern California in the 1970s she pretty much just floated around the beach like every other blonde beach bunny. However, this slacker was getting more out of catching rays than she ever did in school.
Rather than stick around California, Derek dropped out of high school and moved to Europe, and by her early 20s she was the literal poster girl of the movie 10. She went on to star in Bolero and Tarzan The Ape-Man, and while none of those movies were award show fodder by any means, we still remember them because of her bodacious bod.
As much as audiences were drawn to her sexy look, it was her braids in 10 that still draw attention. While speaking with Interview Magazine, Derek explained that she would have just gone au natural in the film, but husband John Derek insisted that she wear braids so she stick out from the rest of the onscreen beauties of the era:
It was the tail end of the 1970s and everything was fluffy, and I'm blond, and … What are you going to do to look different? John had always thought that that would be a good look for me, just for photography—he’s a great photographer. And we tried it. And he said, 'Why don't you take these pictures into Blake and see if he'll go for it. It would be really good for the part, so you don’t look ordinary.'
Joey Heatherton - TV's Young Dancing Vixen
Not just another blonde bombshell, Joey Heatherton was an all-singing, all-dancing entertainer akin to Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra in the 1960s. Just, you know, a woman. Her onstage presence was something that stunned viewers, as she slunk around the stage - all 5'5" of her - singing "I've Got Your Number" and making jaws drop.
In the 1960s, Heatherton popped up on everything from The Tonight Show to Hullaballo where she was critiqued as an Ann-Margret knock off, but that didn't make audiences turn off their sets. If anything, it made more men tune in. Heatherton was all over TV in the groovy era, but she wasn't just some air-headed star, she cared about people.
One of the most important things she did with her celebrity was travel with Bob Hope on a series of USO tours between 1965 and 1977, where she put her life on the line to sing and dance for soldiers in Vietnam. In one instance she nearly lost it all during an enemy assault. She remembers:
We were literally surrounded (by the Vietcong). An aide picked me up… while I was on stage he picked me up and carried me, ran with me to a helicopter. We were taken to a plane and all of a sudden we were in the Philippines. I looked down and I had mud all over my feet and legs.
The Great Barbi Benton Through Pictures Then and Now
One of the best known models of the '60s and '70s, Barbi Benton was able to transition from life as a Playboy Bunny to being an actress, singer, and even a stand up comedian. She's truly the total package.
Benton's first Playboy appearance was on the cover of the July 1969 issue, and she quickly became a fan favorite, appearing on the cover of the March 1970 issue as well as the May 1972 issue. She was only 18 years old when she first started working with Hefner, she appeared an extra on After Dark, and Hefner quickly fell for her.
After her Playboy appearances, Benton popped up on The Love Boat and Fantasy Island, and she was all over the talk show circuit. If there was a late night show she could appear on you can bet she was there. By the end of the '70s, Benton was done with the spotlight and she settled down with a California real estate developer named George Gradow.
Jacqueline Bisset, Young Beauty Of 'The Deep'
Jacqueline Bisset was an early version of the action heroine that's pretty much required in film today. Audiences first saw her in films like Casino Royale and Bullitt, and she was absolutely breathtaking. However, it was Bissett's role in The Deep that made men sit up and take notice.
When the award winning actress pulls herself out of the ocean in a soaking wet white t-shirt and a pair of bikini bottoms it changed cinema forever. This role turned her into a sex symbol overnight, and in 1977 she was named "the most beautiful actress of all time" by Newsweek.
As we all know, Hollywood is AWFUL to actresses, and the most beautiful actress of the '70s was suddenly playing a hot mom in 1983's Class where she had an affair with her son’s best friend, played by Andrew McCarthy, and Rich and Famous where she seduces two younger men. Bisset, it seems, was the first cougar.
'Warriors, Come Out To Play' Story Of The Line From A Cult Classic
The Warriors is easily one of the most quotable movies of all time, but the line that everyone remembers is said in a creepy, sing-songy voice at the end of the film when Dan Patrick Kelly, the actor who played the rival gang leader Luther says "Warriors... come out to play" while clinking a trio of Coca-Cola bottles together.
This extremely memorable movie moment has caused some debate in the world of cinephiles. Was it in the script or did Kelly make it up on the day? It's a little bit of column A and column B. The line isn't isn't in the script, but it didn't come up off the top of Kelly's head either. He states that while he came up with the clinking bottles to escalate the tension in the scene, it was actually director Walter Hill who fed him the line. He told Entertainment Weekly:
Walter gives me credit for that. I found the bottles, but he says I did it all. It wasn’t in the script. I’ll take credit for the bottles and how I said it. But I remember him kicking in the lines.
Kelly goes on to say that he took the melody in which he delivered the lines from a neighbor of his in Manhattan who could often be heard singing, "Daaaaavid... Daaaaaavid," which is just super creepy.
Tanya Roberts - Bond Girl, Sheena And Beastmaster
Tanya Roberts is one of the few actresses who's appeared in franchises ranging from fantasy epics like Beastmaster to the James Bond franchise. Although as gorgeous as she is, she didn't just start getting roles the moment she moved to Hollywood.
After modeling for a while and starring in ads for Excedrin, Ultra Brite, Clairol, and Cool Ray sunglasses, she got a job in the 1975 film Forced Entry, inspiring her to move to Los Angeles. She and her husband moved out west where he searched for screenwriting gigs and she was hired for the campy horror movie Tourist Trap.
Her big break came in 1980 when she was cast in the fifth season of Charlie's Angels as the street-smart Angel who didn't mess around. She went on to play a Bond girl in A View to a Kill, something that pretty much stopped her film career, but she doesn't care. She said:
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? Glenn 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?
Who Was In The Rat Pack? Sinatra's Vegas Crew, Explained
"The Rat Pack" has become synonymous with a cool group of men about town. We get the phrase from Frank Sinatra and his crew of Las Vegas performer buddies, but whenever you look up the Rat Pack there's always a different group of people assigned to the crew, so who's in the group?
We know that Frank Sinatra was the group's leader, followed by Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr., but who else was in the group? In the 1960s there were only five members of the group, and even if you want to throw in all the guys from Ocean's 11 you'd be wrong. The official roster was Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dean Martin, and of course, Frank Sinatra. The all performed together, they all drank together, and they all caroused together.
When the group performed together in Vegas it was a look into one of the coolest groups of the era. They had their own drink cart on stage, they made jokes about one another, and they often dropped names of the other fame-os that they knew. Even though they're a Vegas institution, the group was created in Los Angeles, at the home of Humphrey Bogart. According to his son Stephen the official members were:- Frank Sinatra, the "Pack Master"
- Judy Garland, the "First Vice-President"
- Nicole Bassing, "Den Mother." Bassing does not seem to have been in show business.
- Sid Luft, "Cage Master." Luft was a former boxer who worked in the Hollywood film industry, and was Judy Garland's husband from 1952 to 1965.
- Bogart, "Rat in Charge of Public Relations"
- Swifty Lazar, "Recording Secretary and Treasurer." Lazar was a Hollywood super-agent whose clients included Bogey and Bacall.
- Nathaniel Benchley, Historian. Benchley was a writer, son of Algonquin Round Table co-founder Robert Benchley and the father of Peter Benchley, who wrote the shark-hunt novel Jaws. Nathaniel Benchley's most enduring book is probably Bright Candles: A Novel Of The Danish Resistance, which is read by many junior high and high school students to this day.
It sounds like we'll never get to the bottom of this whole Rat Pack thing.
Elvira, Mistress Of The Dark And Movie Macabre Hostess
Whether you're a horror movie buff, a gore hound, or you can't stand scary movies, you know Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. She first made her presence known on local Los Angeles television in the 1980s with Elvira’s Movie Macabre, and she quickly became one of the greatest horror hosts who's ever graced the small screen.
Before Elvira was Elvira, she was Cassandra Peterson, a young woman with drive and ambition who just wanted to be in the entertainment industry. She got her start working as a go-go dancer after graduating from high school, and it's there that she met The King, Elvis Presley. The two became friends, and they even hung out in Las Vegas while they were both performing. She said:
[Elvis] was very innocent. He was surrounded by all of his handlers every second ― he was never alone. We talked all night. He played the piano and we sang together. He had just gotten this belt from the president of the United States, so he was showing me that. We were talking about numerology and astrology and psychic stuff ― he was really into it.
Peterson did some acting as herself in the 1970s, but she moved to LA in '79 and it wasn't long that she was being fitted for a black wig and tight dress. At the time, local Los Angeles television station KHJ-TV was trying to revive their highly rated horror series Fright Night, and after attempting to work with Malia Nurmi (Vampira), they cut ties with her and met with Peterson. Initially she wanted to be a kind of blonde ditz, but the station wanted goth so Peterson worked out a character that was part valley girl and part witch. She explained:
I figured out that Elvira is me when I was a teenager. She's a spastic girl. I just say what I feel and people seem to enjoy it.
Sean Connery Wore a Hairpiece in Every Original James Bond Movie
Audiences don't really think about hair when they think of James Bond, there's all the babes, the guns, and the spy gadgets after all, but if you think about it, Sean Connery's Bond always had that little swirl of immaculately quaffed hair.
Connery's style never changed from movie to movie, and that's because he was wearing a piece. No, not a Walter PPK, but a real deal wig. Even in the late '60s this Scottish charmer was as bald as a plate of haggis, he started balding at a young age, and felt more comfortable wearing a hairpiece while on camera.
By the time he was cast in Dr. No, Connery was in his 30s and pretty much completely bald. He was wanted for the part but had to do it with a rug, otherwise audiences wouldn't have bought his suave super agent thing. Frankly, we think it's time for a bald Bond. What about you?
What Is 'Deliverance's 'Squeal Like A Pig' Scene Really About?
From the day it was released in 1972, Deliverance has been scaring city slickers away from backwoods of the south out of fear of some yokel with a banjo making them "squeal like a pig."
The film follows a group of four men as they travel from Atlanta on a rural camping trip, but it's the scene where Ned Beatty is told to "squeal like a pig" that's the most horrifying. The scene is horrifying for viewers, but the line that most people remember from the movie wasn't even in the script - it was thought up on the day by a crew member.
In the scene, Beatty is sexually assaulted by a backwoods antagonist, and co-star Burt Reynolds says that as upsetting as it is, it's an important part of the picture. He explained:
Women get this movie much quicker than men. Women also understand. You know, for so many years men threw the word rape around and never thought about what they were saying. And I think the picture makes men think about something that’s very important, that we understand the pain and embarrassment and the change of people’s lives.
Barbie - Doll Of Empowerment, Or Oppression?
Introduced in 1959, the Barbie doll has long been a thing of desire for young girls, however, there's a question about whether or not she should be. Sure, the Barbie character is on her own, and cooking and cleaning for herself, but she's also designed to a set of insane proportions that no one can really stand up to without surgery.
The first Barbie - or Barbara Millicent Rogers if you prefer - was sold in a strapless bathing suit and was immediately a success in spite of criticisms of her overt sexuality. By the 1970s, Mattell changed the design of the doll to reflect the more laid back nature of the era. She was tan, sculpted, and makeup free, a move that made her popular with some feminists.
Try as they might, the makers of Barbie couldn't please everyone, and it's been argued that the doll's measurements have created unrealistic ideals of the human body for young women. The most unrealistic part of Barbie's proportions is her weight - 110 pounds for a 5'7" woman, 35 pounds less than what nutritionists say a woman of that height should weigh.
'Here's Johnny!' The 'Shining' Line That Younger People Might Not Get
The Shining is one of the scariest movies of all time, but for all of its bloody twins, melting women, and young boys having seizures, the most memorable thing from the film for most people is Jack Nicholson's line, "Here's Johnny" as he busts through a bathroom door. Nicholson supposedly came up with the line on the day of filming, and while that doesn't really gel with Stanley Kubrick's directing style (lots of very specific takes), it made it into the film.
In 1980, Kubrick discussed the writing and production of the film with The Soho News, explaining that his writing process involves carving the screenplay down into a fine starting point for production, and then throwing it out once the actors are on set. He said:
I find that no matter how carefully you write a scene, when you rehearse it for the first time there always seems to be something completely different, and you realize that there are interesting ideas in the scene which you never thought of, or that ideas that you thought were interesting aren’t. Or that the weight of the idea is unbalanced; something is too obvious or not clear enough, so I very often rewrite the scene with the rehearsal. I feel it’s the way you can take the best advantage of both the abilities of the actors and even perhaps the weaknesses of the actors. If there’s something they aren’t doing, or it’s pretty clear they can’t do (I must say that’s not true in The Shining because they were so great), you suddenly become aware of ideas and possibilities which just didn’t occur to you.
Zoomers and young millennials may not know where the line comes from, but it's undeniably iconic.
Just How Big Were Earth Shoes In The '70s?
Were Earth Shoes really that big of a deal in the 1970s? These clunky shoes definitely come to mind when we think of the decade where everyone was trying to get back to the Earth, but were they comfortable enough to actually wear on a daily basis.
Created by Danish yoga instructor and shoe designer named Anna Kalso, the shoes have a “negative heel technology” design with a heel that's thin at the front of the foot so the wearer is actually walking heel-downward at -3.7º, the same way that we walk when we're on sand.
As much as Earth Shoes made people walk a little more natural, they were seriously ugly. They just were not good to look at. That being said, the shoes were popular enough to pop up on The Tonight Show, and they're even being sold now. So maybe they were a big deal, just the kind of big deal that we wouldn't be caught wearing.
Why Karen Carpenter's Death Still Haunts Us
Karen Carpenter, the angel voiced singer behind some of the most somber and beautiful hits off the 1970s, was also one of the most damaged souls of her era. She may have been smiling on the outside while she sang "Don't you remember I told you I love you baby..." but on the inside she was in pain.
As a member of the soft-rock duo The Carpenters, Karen and her brother scored massive hits with "For All We Know," "Rainy Days And Mondays," and "Superstar," and they even won the Grammy for Best New Artist of 1970, they followed that up with another Grammy win a year later.
As it is with many incredibly talents, Carpenter was dealing with depression and anorexia. No matter how skinny she was, Carpenter felt like she could always be skinnier. She wet on a workout routine that had her lose 20 pounds, but that wasn't enough. Carpenter got so skinny that people thought she was suffering from cancer, but it was just her private battle that was turning her into a frail imitation of herself.
On February 4, 1983, Carpenter collapsed at her family's home. When she was brought to the hospital she was pronounced dead, she was only 32 years old.
Mr. Blue Sky Is The Happiest Song On Earth, According To Science
There are a lot of songs that can cheer us up on a dreary day, but according to science Mr. Blue Sky is what you can put on at any time when you want to increase your endorphins exponentially. Netherlands-based researcher Jacob Jolij developed the "Feel Good Formula," something that he used to figure out what exactly is the happiest song on Earth.
Jolij looked at 126 songs from a period of 50 years while speaking with 2,000 people to see which song makes them feel the best. He found that in order to make people happy a pop song had to be around 150 BPM (beats per minute), and it needs to be in a major key. Lyrically, the songs should be about something positive or completely nonsensical.
Since its release in 1978, "Mr. Blue Sky" has gone on to become one of the most streamed and downloaded songs of the '70s, and it's been used in everything from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. II to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Ann-Margret - Young Vixen Of The '60s
There are few actresses who hold their own against The King and have a career afterwards. Not that Elvis was awful to his co-stars or anything, it's just that he tended to outshine the women in his films, so much so that their careers went downhill after co-starring in a film with him. THat's not what happened to Ann-Margret.
In three films alongside Presley in the early '60s - State Fair, Bye Bye Birdie, and Viva Las Vegas - Ann-Margret cemented her legacy as a sexy, funny, and multi-talented star who's been singing and dancing around her co-stars for decades.
Aside from working with Elvis, Ann-Margret has starred in fils alongside John Wayne, Steve McQueen, and Jack Nicholson, and she's till acting today with critically acclaimed roles. Over the last 50 years she's been nominated for five Golden Globes, two Academy Awards, and six Emmy nods. It's Ann-Margret's world, we're just living in it.
Ali MacGraw - Young 'Love Story' Beauty
In the 1970s every woman wanted to be Ali McGraw. She only appeared in a handful of movies, but they made a massive impact on the culture. After starting out as an assistant to the fashion columnist and editor Diana Vreeland at Harper’s Bazaar, McGraw went on to model for Chanel in the late '60s before marrying producer Robert Evans and starring in 1970's Love Story opposite Ryan O'Neal.
McGraw's next movie essentially blew up her life. She starred alongside Steve McQueen in The Getaway in 1972, and found herself in love. She and McQueen had a torrid love affair and she divorced Evans to marry McQueen. In 1978 their marriage fell apart, and after a fire destroyed her home she moved to New Mexico to stay out of the limelight.
After appearing in a 13 episode arc on Dynasty, McGraw checked herself into the Betty Ford Clinic for substance abuse, and in 1991 she was named one of People’s “50 Most Beautiful People in the World.” McGraw still models and acts, but she stays out of the limelight.
Stevie Nicks, Hot '70s Queen Of Rock 'N Roll
Stevie Nicks is an angelic gift to the music industry. Her sultry voice and witchy style brought life to the 1970s, and era when rock's biggest acts were getting bloated and boring. Mysterious and seductive, Nicks brings a sultry air to tracks like "Dreams," and "Silver Springs," something that sets Fleetwood Mac apart from bands like the overly macho Eagles, and Crosby Stills & Nash.
This rock n roll superstar was an icon from the moment she hit the stage. With her shawls and scarves, she changed the vibe of the '70s from her first performance, but just because she has an ethereal air that doesn't mean she didn't party with the best of them.
The Gold Dust Woman had a love for cocaine, something that nearly destroyed her career by wreaking havoc on her nasal cavity. Her raspy, soul shaking voice was almost stripped away after she snorted a dime sized hole in her septum.
The Cast Of 'The Outsiders,' Where Are They Now?
Okay, so it's kind of silly to ask 'where are they now' about the cast of The Outsiders when the answers range from "moderately successful character actor" to "one of the most famous people in the world." Starring Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Emilio Estevez, Ralph Macchio, and C. Thomas Howell, The Outsiders was a huge hit in the '80s, and aside from introduce the public at large to the phrase "nothing gold can stay," it essentially showed audiences who they'd be seeing onscreen for the next 30 years.
A pre-cursor to the Brat Pack era, The Outsiders features Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruise, and Rob Lowe in supporting roles just a few years before they all became huge draws in St. Elmo's Fire, The Breakfast Club, and Risky Business. Oh, and there's a Karate Kid in the movie. The cast is truly stacked. Taking place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the film follows a group of greasers (kids from a low income neighborhood) who are constantly at war with the "Socs," or wealthy teens - and everyone looks amazing.
Macchio went on to star in The Karate Kid franchise and My Cousin Vinnie, but he's most well known for his role as Daniel LaRusso, and he's still playing it today in Cobra Kai. Patrick Swayze went on to be one of the biggest box office draws of the '80s and '90s with Dirty Dancing, Road House, Ghost, and Point Break all wracking up gobs of money at the box office. He passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2009.
Matt Dillion continued to brood throughout his career in Drugstore Cowboy and Singles, but he's since become a reliable character actor with an Oscar on his mantle. His co-star, Rob Lowe, was a major part of the Brat Pack along with Emilio Estevez. They both starred in St. Elmo's Fire and went on to successful careers in the '90s and 2000s, with Estevez turning to directing.
One outlier from the cast is Tom Cruise. He just dropped off the map after this movie and no one's heard from him. Just kidding, he's literally one of the most famous people in the world with about ten different giant franchises under his belt.
She Was 'Family Affair's Buffy - Anissa Jones's Tragic Death
Anissa Jones, the little girl who played Buffy on Family Affair was only eight years old when she was cast as the cute little orphan, but it's this casting that played a part in her untimely and tragic end. From 1966 to 1971, Jones was all over television. She worked long hours, and always had to be seen carrying her doll, "Mrs. Beasley."
By the time the show ended, Jones was 13 years old and had already made the talk show circuit and acted with Elvis in The Trouble With Girls. She was basically fulfilling the dreams of many adult actresses, but she was only at the beginning of her career. Unfortunately, she couldn't shake the image of a cute television actress. She lost out on huge film roles, and became so depressed that she started ignoring her agent's request that she continue auditioning and she started skipping school regularly. By 1975 she was taking a lot of drugs, shoplifting, and she'd dropped out of school.
When Jones turned 18 in 1976 she got ahold of her earnings from Family Affair - $180,000 and an unspecified amount of money from U.S. savings bonds that had been held for her in a trust fund - and she careened towards her final moments. In August of that year she went to a party on the beach and was later found dead from a drug overdose, with cocaine, PCP, and Seconal and Quaaludes in her system.
Yvonne De Carlo - Lily Munster Was A Movie Star Before TV
Audiences know her as Lily Munster, by Yvonne De Carlo was hardly a one hit wonder. Her spooky success as a sexy sitcom monster came after decades of work in legitimate film hits like Salome, Where She Danced, and Easter television mainstay The Ten Commandments. Even with this early success, De Carlo was broke by the time she was in her 40s and she was willing to do whatever she had to so she could pay the bills.
After retiring from acting in 1955, De Carlo retired to a horse farm in Coldwater Canyon with her husband, a stuntman for MGM. However, after he was permanently crippled she had to find work in order to fund a lawsuit against his former employer (one of the biggest studios the country at the time).
De Carlo didn't want to take the gig as Lily Munster, she felt that it was a severe decline from her earlier work, but she explained that she wasn't the kind of person to turn down work:
It meant security. It gave me a new, young audience I wouldn’t have had otherwise. It made me ‘hot’ again, which I wasn’t for a while.
The Munsters introduced De Carlo to a whole new era of fans, many of which stuck with her for the rest of her career thanks to some green face paint and a witchy wig.
Suzanne Somers, Three's Company To ThighMaster
She may have gotten her start as Chrissy on Three's Company, but Suzanne Somers has remained in the spotlight in spite of dealing with sexism and co-stars who wouldn't go to bat for her. From 1977 to 1981 Somers was all over television, appearing on Battle Of The Network Stars, game shows, variety shows, and late-night talk shows.
Somers hit it big with her role on Three's Company, but after she asked for a raise to match her pay with co-star John Ritter she was fired from the show While many people would fold under that kind of frustration, Somers pivoted to the fitness world where she appeared in a series of infomercials, but found the most fame with ThighMaster.
These ads kept Somers in the spotlight, and she shot back to television stardom on Step By Step in the '90s, and she's still on TV today. In 2015, she appeared on Dancing with the Stars.
What Ever Happened To Seals And Crofts?
Seals and Crofts are in iconic yacht rock duo who turned talented musicianship into an easy listening gold mine, but what happened to this signer-songwriter duo?
Fans flocked to this laid back twosome thanks to singles like "Summer Breeze," "Diamond Girl," and "Get Closer," all of which were hits both for the duo and for artists like The Isley Brothers. These guys just couldn't stop having hits, however, they just kind disappeared in 1980. Both Seals and Crofts felt that they needed to get out while the getting was good in order to pursue their faith.
Both Jim Seals and Dash Crofts were faithful followers of the Bahá'í Faith, and they were known to discuss it with any fan who was interested after a show, so it's no surprise that after making a ton of money they became more interested in a life of religious study.
Erin Moran - From 'Happy Days' To Not-So-Happy Days
The shocking tragedy of Erin Moran's career is one of those sad Hollywood tales that threatens to usurp all of the good that she did in her career. With performances in Happy Days, Daktari, and Joanie Loves Chachi, Moran was one of the most prolific television stars of the '70s and '80s.
Even after she achieved amazing success on Happy Days, things seemed set against Moran. The producers of the show wanted the 15 year old actress to lose weight and change her appearance to something sexier, which gave her a complex for the rest of her life. Following the end of Joanie Loves Chachi, Moran had trouble finding roles and ended up living in her mother in law's trailer while her then-husband Steven Fleischmann worked at Wal-Mart to cover all of their bills, until the couple were kicked out because of Moran's addiction.
In 2016, Moran was diagnosed with stage 4 throat cancer, but by the time the illness was discovered her health was so far deteriorated that nothing could be done. She passed away in a mobile home in Indiana while taking a nap with her husband on the anniversary of when they first met.
'I Love The Smell Of Napalm In The Morning-' The 'Apocalypse Now' Line, Explained
Apocalypse Now is an insane, twisted look at the Vietnam War, and it's one of the best films of the 1970s. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, the film gave audiences Marlon Brando as a haunting jungle king and it showed the depths of depravity which men can sink - but it also gave viewers one of the most misused quotes of all time.
Spoken by Robert Duvall as Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore, most people remember the line as simply being, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning, it smells like victory," but that's not the actual quote.
Kilgore's actual quote is much more intense, and it nods to the horror show of a situation that the characters all find themselves in, and the way that battle changes a person. Additionally, Kilgore's racial slur shows just how little he thinks of his enemy, wand how little remorse he has for anyone else. Kilgore says:
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn’t find one of ’em, not one stinkin' dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like victory.
'If I Leave Here Tomorrow' - Musicians Who Died In Plane Crashes
At this point it's almost cliche when a rock star dies in a plane crash. It's awful, and we don't wish it on anyone, but since Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Richie Valens went down over Iowa in 1959, audiences have come to, maybe not expect, but at the very least not be surprised when someone famous dies in a crash.
In 1963, just a few years after Holly and his buddies crashed in Iowas, Patsy Cline boarded a small plane that went down in a torrential downpour. When her wristwatch was later recovered it had stopped exactly at 6:20 PM. Five years later Otis Redding's plane crashed in Lake Monoa, outside of Madison Wisconsin, killing him and six others.
In the 1970s there were two major air accidents that changed music forever. In 1973, Jim Croce's plane crashed into a tree on takeoff from the Natchitoches Airport in Louisiana, one day before his single "I Got A Name" was released. Four years later, in 1977, Lynyrd Skynyrd boarded a flight from Greenville, South Carolina to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Their plane ran out of fuel five miles northeast of Gillsburg, Mississippi, and crashed into a forest. Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, Cassie Gaines (Steve’s sister), Dean Kilpatrick (assistant road manager), the pilot, and co-pilot all died on impact, but the rest of the band and several members of the road crew survived with painful injuries.
