Hollywood had a pretty clear idea of what a male star was supposed to look like—and these guys were not it. Then they became some of the biggest stars of the 60s and 70s anyway.

Behind Donald O'Connor's famous grin was a performer whose life was repeatedly shaken by exhaustion, illness, and a body pushed far beyond its limits.

These women once filled theaters, bedroom walls and teenage daydreams. Today, most Millennial men probably couldn’t name a single one. How many do you remember?

Discover how Bernie Kopell went from TV oddballs and Get Smart’s Siegfried to The Love Boat’s charming Dr. Adam Bricker—and built a career lasting decades.

The 1970s gave American listeners disco, arena rock, singer-songwriters, punk, and an astonishing collection of records that sound as if they slipped past the gatekeepers when nobody was looking. For this list, “one-hit wonder” refers to acts remembered in the United States for one major Top 40 breakthrough, even when they enjoyed longer careers or greater success overseas. Once you revisit what some of these songs were actually about, the decade starts looking considerably stranger than the soft-focus nostalgia suggests.

Mention 1978 and younger listeners may immediately reach for the Bee Gees, Queen, or the soundtrack to Grease. The actual radio landscape was much bigger, with soft rock, disco, soul, country-pop, and arena rock all fighting for space while Saturday Night Fever turned disco into a full-blown cultural phenomenon. Plenty of songs that dominated American radio that year have since slipped out of everyday pop culture, even though one chorus can still transport a whole generation straight back to the car radio.