Were attractive people in shorter supply in the 60s and 70s?

This post isn’t going to make me any friends, but I suspect some of you have wondered the same thing.

Mrs. C and I dance a lot, and at one of our regular dances, the DJ plays videos of the song along with the music.

One thing is startlingly clear. There were a fair number of famous singers in the 60s and 70s who were not all that attractive.

The internet makes it fairly obvious that there are a lot of beautiful, talented people in the world. So why were relatively unattractive people the big stars in the past? (At least in disproportionate numbers. Some of them were quite beautiful.)

  1. They didn’t care that the stars weren’t all that attractive. (Damned unlikely.)
  2. There really were fewer beautiful, talented people back them. (Maybe, but hard to believe.)
  3. Most people thought of chasing stardom as an illegitimate or immoral pursuit, so the pool of people who were willing to become stars was limited.

What do you think?

5 thoughts on “Were attractive people in shorter supply in the 60s and 70s?”

  1. I don’t think #1 is that unlikely at all. Music and TV/movies were much more separate than they are now. A popular singer might make an appearance on a variety show now and then, but they would have become popular long before that via radio and then records. People learned to like the music without having any idea what the musicians looked like.

  2. And record companies didn’t care because they didn’t need looks to sell records or get airplay, they needed sound.

  3. QUOTE: One thing is startlingly clear. There were a fair number of famous singers in the 60s and 70s who were not all that attractive.

    Who determines what is attractive to a broad and varied audience? Some may have found those singers in the 60s and 70s “not all that attractive” and some may have found them to have “appeal”. Maybe it’s true that…beauty is in the eye of the beholder?

    As well, time has a way of changing views on attractiveness. Some look back at old pictures and think…“OMG! What possessed me to wear X”. At the time, they thought they were the cat’s meow. Yet, when looking back they now think they looked like something the cat drug in.

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