The biggest box office draw of the 1970s is claimed to be legendary Hollywood star Robert Redford. Thanks to roles in the likes of All the President’s Men, The Way We Were, and The Sting (which earned him his first Oscar nomination in 1974), Redford—who died in 2025 at the age of 89—made a raft of films that, adjusted for inflation, earned more than $3 billion in the 1970s alone.
But what about the decade’s other biggest names? From fellow Hollywood icons to TV favorites and pop superstars, 25 of the 1970’s best and brightest are explored here.
- ALAN ALDA
- RICHARD ATTENBOROUGH
- MEL BROOKS
- DAVID CASSIDY
- JOHN CLEESE
- SUSAN DEY
- CLINT EASTWOOD
- FARRAH FAWCETT
- MELISSA GILBERT
- PAUL MICHAEL GLASER
- LARRY HAGMAN
- DUSTIN HOFFMAN
- LEE MAJORS
- MARY TYLER MOORE
- OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN
- BURT REYNOLDS
- GEORGE C. SCOTT
- CARLY SIMON
- DAVID SOUL
- SISSY SPACEK
- LORETTA SWIT
- RICHARD THOMAS
- JOHN TRAVOLTA
- LINDSAY WAGNER
- HENRY WINKLER
ALAN ALDA
Actor, director and writer Alan Alda began his career on Broadway before becoming a household name in the United States and beyond when Korean War sitcom M*A*S*H debuted in 1972. Running for over a decade (eight years longer than the war around which it was based), the show became one of the biggest hits in TV history, with its final episode still one of the most watched television broadcasts of all time. Alda—who also wrote and directed many of the show’s episodes—followed its success with a string of roles in film and theatre, including The Aviator, Bridge of Spies and Marriage Story in the 2000s and 2010s. He celebrated his 90th birthday in 2026.
RICHARD ATTENBOROUGH
Brother of naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough, Richard Attenborough made his acting debut on the stage in 1937, his film debut in 1942, and his directorial debut in the 1960s. By the following decade, he was one of the biggest and most acclaimed actors in show business: knighted in 1976, his films picking up three Oscar nominations and 15 BAFTA nominations (winning five) in the 1970s alone. In front of the camera, he made a memorable performance as a real-life serial killer in the murder biopic 10 Rillington Place in 1971, while behind the camera he turned out a string of hits including A Bridge Too Far and Magic. He made Hollywood history with his epic historical biopic Gandhi in 1982, played John Hammond in Jurassic Park in 1993, and directed his final film, Closing the Ring, in 2007. He died in 2014 at the age of 90.
MEL BROOKS
Having worked in the entertainment industry since the 1940s, comedy legend Mel Brooks broke into Hollywood in the late 1960s, winning the Oscar for Best Screenplay for The Producers in 1967. The 1970s saw him write and direct some of the decade’s biggest comedies, including Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and High Anxiety, and his particular brand of farcical, screwball comedies has remained popular ever since. He earned an EGOT in the early 2000s when the stage adaptation of The Producers picked up a raft of Tony Awards, and has continued to work ever since. A sequel to his Star Wars spoof Space Balls—titled Space Balls: The New One—is set for release in 2027; Brooks, who appears in a dual role in the film, turned 100 in June 2026.
DAVID CASSIDY
David Cassidy’s breakout teen idol role on the sitcom The Partridge Family, which ran on television from 1970 to 1974, made him a household name across the United States. Around the rest of the world, and particularly in the UK, he became better known as a pop star with a string of Number 1 singles in the 1970s and 80s. His worldwide success was so great, in fact, that at the height of his fame, Cassidy was rumored to be the highest-paid entertainer in the world. After struggles with alcohol in his later years, sadly Cassidy made public a diagnosis of dementia in 2017, as he stepped back from performing. He died the same year at the age of 67.
JOHN CLEESE
British comic actor and writer John Cleese reached worldwide fame as part of BBC surrealist comedy series Monty Python’s Flying Circus, which ran from 1969 to 1974. Roles in all the subsequent Monty Python movies followed, but Cleese further cemented his comic legend status with the classic hotel sitcom Fawlty Towers (1975–79). He earned an Oscar nomination in 1989 for his screenplay for classic comedy A Fish Called Wanda, and—now in his mid-80s—has continued to write and perform comedy ever since.
SUSAN DEY
Cassidy’s longtime co-star in The Partridge Family, Susan Dey likewise swept to fame on the show, and quickly became a household name across the United States. A long-running stint in LA Law followed in the 80s and 90s, but Dey has since retired from acting and serves instead on the board of several charitable and nonprofit organizations in New York.
CLINT EASTWOOD
Another of the decade’s biggest stars, Clint Eastwood made his acting debut in 1954 and carved out a memorable career as a star of spaghetti Westerns in the 1960s, before adding a host of new genres and roles to his list of credits in the 1970s and beyond. He made his directorial debut in the noirish thriller Play Misty for Me in 1971, and has continued to work both in front and behind the camera ever since. Now an 11-time Oscar nominee, Eastwood has won four Academy Awards to date—both Best Picture and Best Director for Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby. He confirmed his retirement from filmmaking in 2026, at the age of 96, after more than 70 years in the business.
FARRAH FAWCETT
Actress and model Farrah Fawcett became one of the biggest stars of the 1970s thanks to her roles in TV’s Six Million Dollar Man, from 1974–78, and Charlie’s Angels, which ran from 1976 to 1981. Fawcett turned to more series drama in the 80s and 90s, picking up Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for well-received miniseries including The Burning Bed and Small Sacrifices. She caused controversy in 1995 by posing for Playboy magazine at the age of 50, and returned to the small screen with TV roles in the likes of Ally McBeal and Spin City in the 2000s. Tragically, her career was cut short by a diagnosis of cancer in 2006, and Fawcett died three years later at the age of 62.
MELISSA GILBERT
Melissa Gilbert starred as Laura Ingalls Wilder in the long-running NBC series Little House on the Prairie from 1974 to 1983, becoming one of the most recognizable faces on American TV. When the series ended, Gilbert continued to act on film and television, most recently appearing in the Hallmark Western series When Calls the Heart in 2026.
PAUL MICHAEL GLASER
Paul Michael Glaser made his acting debut in 1970, but became a breakout star thanks to his role as Sergeant David Starksy in TV’s Starsky & Hutch. The series ran for over 90 episodes from 1975–79, after which Glaser carved out a broader career both on stage and screen, and in front of and behind the camera, and as an artist. Now in his 80s, he continues to act, most recently appearing in the likes of Grace and Frankie and Ray Donovan in the 2010s, and made his first US exhibit of his paintings and photography in 2018.
LARRY HAGMAN
Already well known on television for his role in the sitcom I Dream of Jeannie in the 1960s, Larry Hagman became better known worldwide in the late 1970s when he was cast as hard-nosed oil baron JR Ewing in Dallas in 1978. The series ran until 1991, by which time it and its characters had become an unstoppable global phenomenon. Sadly, ill health plagued Hagman’s later years, and he had to undergo a life-saving liver transplant just four years after Dallas ended, in 1995. He returned briefly to the series’ reboot on TNT in 2012, but died in the same year at the age of 81.
DUSTIN HOFFMAN
Already one of Hollywood’s biggest stars by the turn of the decade, Dustin Hoffman continued his run of A-list successes in the 1970s, picking up his second and third Oscar nominations for Midnight Cowboy and Lenny (and finally winning for Kramer vs. Kramer in 1980). He won again in 1989 for Rain Man, was nominated for a Tony Award for The Merchant of Venice in 1990, made his directorial debut with Quarter in 2012, and has continued to amass an extraordinary string of stage and screen credits ever since. He will next star in Peter Greenaway’s drama Tower Stories in 2027—the same year he will celebrate his 90th birthday.
LEE MAJORS
Already a household name thanks to the success of 1960s Western series The Big Valley, Lee Majors achieved a new level of fame when he was cast in the title role of sci-fi action series The Six Million Dollar Man in 1973. The series ran for four years, and spawned a string of spin-off television movies in the 1980s and 1990s. Now in his 80s, Major has continued to appear in film and television—and even found time to provide a voice for the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.
MARY TYLER MOORE
Comedy series The Mary Tyler Moore Show was one of the biggest series of the 1970s, earning a staggering 29 Emmy Awards over its run from 1970–79. Already a well-known star, thanks to her role in the early Dick Van Dyke Show in the 1960s, Moore remained a major star after the show was over too, picking up an Oscar nomination for Ordinary People in 1980, three Tony Awards in across the 1980s, and another Emmy for her role as an orphanage director in Stolen Babies in the early 1990s. She died in 2017, at the age of 80.
OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN
British-born Australian actress and singer Olivia Newton-John made her film debut in the mid 1960s, but became a global superstar thanks to her breakout role as Sandy in 1978’s Grease. Throughout the decades that followed, she continued to work as an actress, pop superstar (her 1981 hit "Physical" was Billboard's highest-ranking Hot 100 single of the decade), author, philanthropist, and cancer research activist. Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992, she spent the next 30 years campaigning for innovative cancer research and channelling enormous sums of money from her book and record sales into establishing The Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness & Research Centre in Melbourne. Her efforts, and dual citizenship, earned her the rare honor of both a damehood and the Order of Australia. Having previously beaten the disease twice before, Newton-John died of cancer in 2022, at the age of 73.
BURT REYNOLDS
Burt Reynolds ranked alongside Robert Redford as one of the 1970s’ biggest box office draws, with blockbuster roles in the likes of Smokey and the Bandit and Deliverance. Having made his film debut in 1961, Reynolds continued acting throughout the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s, even earning a late-career Oscar nomination for his role in Boogie Nights in 1997. He died in 2018 at the age of 82.
GEORGE C. SCOTT
Legendary actor George C. Scott made history in 1970, when he famously declined the Best Actor Oscar for his role in Patton, claiming actors’ performances cannot be compared to one another. The role was the highlight of Scott’s four-decade film career, as he never quite matched the same high in his movie roles in the 80s and 90s. But as his roles in front of the camera dwindled, Scott returned to the theatre and picked up a record fifth Tony Award for Inherit the Wind, just three years before his death in 1999 at the age of 71.
CARLY SIMON
Born in New York in 1943, Carly Simon dominated the popular music charts in the 1970s, with a string of hits including "Anticipation," global chart-topper "You’re So Vain," and "Nobody Does It Better (the theme to the 1977 Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me)." Now in her 80s, she continues to write and perform new music, releasing her twenty-fourth album, Comes in Waves, to critical acclaim in 2026.
DAVID SOUL
Beginning his screen career in the 1960s, David Soul’s big break came in the mid 1970s when he was cast as Sergeant “Hutch” Hutchinson in TV’s Starsky & Hutch, opposite Paul Michael Glaser. Soul accompanied his television career with an equally successful career as a pop star, scoring a worldwide Number 1 in 1976 with Don’t Give Up On Us. He memorably rounded out the decade with a lead role in the original miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot in 1979. A string of smaller roles in TV and film in the 1980s led to Soul relocating to the UK in the 1990s, where he began a long career on the West End and on British television. He died in London in 2024, at the age of 80.
SISSY SPACEK
Sissy Spacey earned the first of her six career Oscar nominations for her breakout role in Carrie in 1976 (winning four years later for The Coal Miner’s Daughter), and quickly became one of the decade’s biggest movie stars. She has continued to act ever since, often in equally challenging roles; her most recent Oscar nomination was for her role as a grieving mother consumed with revenge in Todd Field’s In the Bedroom in 2001. Roles in film and television have continued long into the 2010s and 2020s—and in 2018, she even memorably appeared opposite David Strathiirn in the “devastating” video for LCD Sound System’s hit "Oh Baby."
LORETTA SWIT
Alan Alda’s M*A*S*H co-star Loretta Swit played Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan in the show, earning an Emmy Award nomination for every single season (winning two, in 1980 and 1982). Having started her career on stage, Swit returned to the theatre in the decades after M*A*S*H, in particular starring in a long-running tour of Willy Russell’s award-winning one-woman play, Shirley Valentine, from the 1990s to 2000s. She died in 2025 at the age of 87.
RICHARD THOMAS
Actor Richard Thomas still perhaps remains best known for his role as “John-Boy” Walton on TV’s long-running historical drama The Waltons, which ran from 1972 to 1977. After the series ended, Thomas managed to successfully carve out a storied career on both stage and screen, with roles in the original miniseries of Stephen King’s It in the 1990s, FX’s The Americans in the 2010s, and Netflix’s Ozark in the 2020s. He earned rave reviews for his performance as Atticus Finch in a national tour of To Kill A Mockingbird, and, at the age of 75, picked up a Tony nomination for The Balusters in 2026.
JOHN TRAVOLTA
After a handful of minor television roles in the early 1970s, John Travolta became one of the decade’s biggest stars, thanks to an extraordinary trio of consecutive credits—Carrie, Saturday Night Fever and Grease—in 1976, 1977, 1978. He remained one of Hollywood’s biggest stars throughout the 80s and 90s, with roles in the likes of Pulp Fiction, Get Shorty, Face/Off and Primary Colors, and has continued to work prolifically ever since. More recently, however, aside from a notable cross-dressing role in the big-screen adaptation of Hairspray in 2007, Travolta’s movies have included a string of direct-to-video releases and he has kept something of a low profile in Hollywood in the 2020s.
LINDSAY WAGNER
Having modelled and acted in film and television since the late 1960s, Lindsay Wagner became a major star of the 1970s when she was cast as The Bionic Woman, in TV’s spinoff from Lee Majors’ The Six Million Dollar Man in 1976. The show, which featured several crossovers with Majors’, earned Wagner an Emmy and two Golden Globe nominations. Wagner has continued to act since, racking up a long list of credits in television movies, alongside guest appearances in the likes of Warehouse 13 and Grey’s Anatomy.
HENRY WINKLER
Thanks to his lead role as Arthur “The Fonz” Fonzarelli in the 70s sitcom Happy Days, actor Henry Winkler became one of the decade’s biggest TV stars (as well as an eternal fashion icon and epitome of cool). The role proved so popular, however, that Winkler was largely typecast after the show came to an end after 10 years in 1984. But in the 2000s, he began a long-overdue resurgence as a character actor and comic, thanks to roles in the likes of Arrested Development, Parks and Recreation, and HBO’s Barry. He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 2025—the same year he celebrated his 80th birthday.