From a childhood of playing dress-up to getting second place in the Miss Minnesota pageant at eighteen, Loni Anderson was destined for greatness. When she and her family relocated to California, both Anderson and her husband started getting acting roles. Anderson found herself in popular shows such as “S.W.A.T.,” “Police Woman,” “Three’s Company,” and “Barnaby Jones,” though she never had starring roles.
That changed in 1978 thanks to a poster she posed for, which caught the attention of Hugh Wilson, who needed someone to star in the sitcom “WKRP in Cincinnati.” Anderson proved to be the breakout star of the series. She went on to get plenty of roles after the series ended and even got married to Burt Reynolds.
Farrah Fawcett (1970s)
With the one-two punch of “Charlie's Angels” coming out the very same year, Farrah Fawcett posed for her legendary bathing suit poster – you know the one – there was no way she wasn't going to become one of the biggest names of the decade almost overnight.
It went like this: You either had a crush on Fawcett, or you spent hours in the bathroom trying to replicate her hairstyle. Her bright smile, big eyes, and enviable figure made her someone who could sell a movie, a TV show, or even a shaving cream just by saying hi. Fawcett and Michael Jackson actually passed away on the same day in 2009.
Catherine Bach (1970s)
If you're of a certain age, you're intimately familiar with Catherine Bach, or at least with the outfit she wore as Daisy Duke on “The Dukes of Hazzard.” Not many get a piece of clothing named after them, and Bach earned her right to become part of television history.
Long before she joined the Dukes, she starred in the Burt Lancaster movie “The Midnight Man” in 1973 – her very first acting role – and she also played alongside Clint Eastwood in “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot.” Bach became a poster queen, selling millions of her in her Daisy Duke getup – producers apparently hired her as soon as they saw the outfit she had picked out for the character.
Sandra Dee (1950s - 1960s)
Sandra began her entertainment career as a child model, later moving on to televised advertisements, breaking into the film when she was a teenager. She became famous for playing ingénues and earned a Golden Globe Award as a promising newcomer. She became a household name thanks to “Imitation of Life” in 1959. She was darling, driving men wild with just one look.
Her career continued into the sixties, but by the end of the decade, it had begun to dwindle. Her publicized divorce with Bobby Darin marked the beginning of the end, and she rarely acted after 1970. Dee died in 2005 of complications from kidney disease.
Michael Biehn (1970s)
Most people will likely remember Michael Biehn from two major roles in the eighties: Sgt. Kyle Reese in the 1983 sci-fi thriller “The Terminator,” and Corporal Dwayne Hicks in the 1986 movie “Aliens.” But during the seventies, he had lots of roles in traditional media as well as science fiction that held lots of viewers tuning in just to see him.
He paid his dues in the acting world, working his way up the ladder on shows such as “James at 16,” “Logan's Run,” and “Family.” It was the short-lived series “The Runaways” from 1979 that got him his place in teen magazines.