Step Back in Time: 71 Rarely Seen Celebrity Photos From the ’70s

Before the highly orchestrated red carpets of today, gaggles of publicists controlling every interaction, and camera phones turning every living moment into a performance, the 1970s actually gave us something much rarer: quiet, unguarded moments of honesty.

Not a lot of posing — mostly famous faces caught pondering, mid-laugh, working out a scene, having a rather ordinary day. The '70s were all about everyday life and living it, whether you were a celebrity or just an average person.

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Take the cast of Charlie's Angels, pictured above — Kate Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, and Jaclyn Smith — captured in a very ordinary candid moment between takes while filming season one's "Night of the Strangler," feathered hair and all. Even Fawcett's iconic pinup pose was somewhat more natural than what you see today, though it was indeed posed.

This 'Brady Bunch' Candid Shows Cracks in the Illusion

Candid Behind-the-Scenes Moment With Cast of Brady Bunch in 1970

Nothing was more "core" '60s and '70s aesthetic than The Brady Bunch, which makes the above rare full-cast candid shot all that more unique. Florence Henderson looks distractedly off camera (how could you not be with that many kids?), not exuding her usual carefully crafted warm glow. Even Ann B. Davis (Alice) has a firm grip on the two youngest boys in the cast, probably to make sure the cast and crew could leave set on time that day.

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But look carefully at the top of the photo, and you'll see the illusion shattered even further: the top of the set is visible, bare scaffolding where the wallpaper simply ends. You're suddenly reminded that TV's most iconic sitcom family, so deeply ingrained in our nostalgia, was just working on a set.

'Little House on the Prairie' Candids Show the Family Behind the Cameras

Michael Landon, Melissa Sue Anderson, Melissa Gilbert, and Alison Arngrim behind the scenes on Little House on the Prairie, 1970s.

And Little House on the Prairie also provides us with some strange, ordinary moments, seen above. Michael Landon famously ran the iconic series with a sometimes notoriously firm hand, writing, directing, producing and starring all at once, but in a candid moment is caught here showing young Melissa Sue Anderson (Mary) her way around the camera. Landon was also famously fatherly to the young cast.

Somewhat jarring is the photo of Melissa Gilbert (Laura) and Alison Arngrim (Nelly), caked in mud mid-shoot on the iconic mud fight scene, simply leaning on each other and having a ball. They would both later admit that they were best friends playing worst enemies.

So take a journey back to the '70s, and see celebrities — some candid, some posed, but all unmistakably themselves — living through the one decade when real truly was the vibe.