Nostalgic Photos That Show Just How Beautiful The Past Really Was

By Sophia Maddox | May 1, 2023

Here’s a throwback to when some of Hollywood’s hottest stars were up-and-comers, established stars were at their pinnacle, and fading stars were taking their last lunge at greatness. In this gallery of throwback picks, you will get a rare glimpse of some of your favorite celebrities as they were three or four decades ago … a great reminder of the good ol’ days before iPhones, Twitter, and Oscar slaps.

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Source: Reddit

For those people who grew up watching Gilligan’s Island reruns every day after school, it is hard to believe that the beloved TV series only ran for three seasons, from 1964 to 1967. For a show that began in the Civil Rights era, it was notable that the cast was all white. Sherwood Schwartz, the show’s creator, once explained that the underlying premise of the show was to take a group of people from diverse backgrounds and put them in a situation where they needed to work together for their survival. That’s a great premise, but Schwartz’s cast of characters failed to adequately represent the diversity of the U.S. population. 

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Source: Reddit

Can you believe bodybuilder-turned-actor Steve Reeves didn’t get the part of the title character in the 1959 movie, Li’l Abner? He lost out to Peter Palmer, despite looking this good in his Li’l Abner costume. Reeves, a professional bodybuilder, appeared in several Italian-made movies in the 1950s, playing beefy characters like Goliath and Hercules. These roles made him, for a time, Europe’s highest-paid actor. His 1958 and 1959 movies, in which he played Hercules, helped make him the number-one box office draw of 1960. Perhaps the producers of Li’l Abner thought that the role of the well-built country bumpkin was a stretch for Reeves, who was typically cast in ‘sword and sandals’ movies.