As a young man in the 70’s you become finely attuned to the wiles of women. And this is the wiliest bunch I know. How do you possibly narrow it down to 10? You can’t, but you can give it the old college try. What I discovered was that a man’s taste in women tends to run the gamut from young and innocent to dark and sultry. One of the most interesting (and sad) discoveries was the cynicism already evident in the eyes of likely the most beautiful woman in the 70’s, Farrah Fawcett. She was just in her mid 20’s when she shot the poster that rocketed her to stardom. And her eyes already showed a sort of ‘tiredness’ at having to be beautiful all the time. I’ll have to ask a beautiful woman sometime if that’s what it is.

This post originally started out as a “10 Most Beautiful Women of the 70s & 80s” (I’m up to 17 22 at last count). That of course was a ridiculous proposition. The seventies and eighties for reasons that aren’t entirely clear to me, had the most beautiful women ever! At least to my mind (big hair and Spandex really helped that perception). It was also a different time in a couple of ways that are hard to understand now. R-Rated “skin flicks” were big back then. “Exploitation” films. Sybil Danning was the Queen, Phyllis Davis made her share too. Looking through photos for Sybil, she had posed with about every weapon known to man and in about every swimsuit known to man! (And then some!) I’m so glad she embraced it and hope she profited greatly. Because I know the producers profited off of her.

Some of the actresses who were winning Oscars in the 70s were Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Glenda Jackson and Liza Minnelli. Nothing wrong with that. But while they were taking home hardware, these women were being asked to do some of the most embarrassing things. It was called “jiggle TV” for a reason. Lynda Carter for one as Wonder Woman experienced this a few times when she wore the tights! Camera angles that captured the cleavage, slow motion that immortalized the bounce. And we appreciated it too, don’t think we didn’t. Oh and the men guests on Charlie’s Angels! The slimey come-on’s! “Hey baby, maybe you’d like to come up to my place??” Makes you embarrassed to be a man!

Something just occurred to me. With the internet today, a boy sees his first naked woman before he would even care to! (What’s a 6 year old care about boobies?) Nudity and pornography are everywhere. I bet they become numb to it. Back then it was ooh la la! Boobies! If a well known star posed in Playboy you bought it! If somebody famous took their shirt off in a movie you went! Teen boys would discuss what they had seen off of whom! (Trust me, I know) I seriously can’t tell you one ‘star of the day’, let alone whether they had ever gotten naked. Though I have noticed young female actresses don’t have the pressure to get naked that they did in the old days.

But the other thing I’ve always noticed will sound the most strange. Really built women in the movies and television, have never reached the pinnacles of success. There is/was some sort of bias amongst the studios against really voluptuous women. Marilyn Monroe (the megastar) was a B-Cup, Jayne Mansfield the B-Queen, was a D-Cup. On and on it goes. Jane Fonda was the “serious actress”. Sybil Danning the built actress. John Travolta would attribute it to “homosexual Jews” who run the studios. Who really knows? One of the best examples is Linda Blair (in my 80s group). She was taken more seriously as a 12 year old child actress, then 10 years later when she had grown into a very curvaceous woman! [Here’s a great site 12th Blog for a vast array of beautiful women from all times and all places.]

Farrah Fawcett

Cheryl Ladd

Shelley Hack

Teresa Graves (Get Christie Love!)

Marie Osmond – the Mormonic Goddess

Pam Grier (Foxy Brown)

Lynda Carter – when you watch reruns of Wonder Woman, Lynda seems like such a nice person, outside of her character.

Marilyn McCoo

Catherine Bach (when you hear the term ‘Daisy Dukes’, this is the original)

Joanna Pettet – I  gave her 2 photos for a reason. Guys who like slender blondes with freckles will understand why. Very busy actress, who was incredibly underutilized if that makes any sense. Just stunning. Its this phenomena I’ve seen before. A contemporary of hers equal in every physical aspect is Meredith McRae. Yet Joanna brings the heat, there isn’t even a contest.

Freda Payne (Band of Gold, 1970) The 70s were truly the decade of the beautiful singer: Freda Payne, Linda Ronstadt, Marie Osmond, Marilyn McCoo, Debbie Harry & Chaka Khan, Sheila Ferguson, Gloria Gaynor. That’s quite a Top 8.

Eve Plumb – for some reason she’s sexy, Maureen McCormick not.

Judy Landers

Sybil Danning

Phyllis Davis

Jennifer O’Neill – in a league of her own. In the summer of 1972 there was not a more beautiful woman on this planet.

Sheila Ferguson (center) Three Degrees. Never have I seen such a shortage of photos of such a knockout. Its bizarre. Luckily YouTube has a ton of video of her.

Gloria Gaynor (this was truly the decade of the songstress goddess)

Susan Anton

Linda Ronstadt – she was universally lusted after. A lot of sex symbols have men who love them and men who hate them. I would have to say men back in the 70s pretty much all had a thing for Linda.

Judy Pace

Chaka Khan (there is such a shortage of photos of her from the 70s)

Debbie Harry

Women of the 2000’s                                Women of the 90’s

Women of the 70’s                        Women of the 60’s

Women of the 40’s & 50’s

Women of the 80’s

Women of the 2010’s

The last 4 photos are of Shelley Hack, who kind of deserves a separate category unto herself. Truly scrumptious. Before she became an actress she appeared in a series of perfume commercials named ‘Charlie‘. When you notice a girl from perfume commercials, she’s memorable.