What happened to these 1970s TV show stars?

“Who can turn the world on with her smile?” A global sensation and trailblazing icon, Mary Tyler Moore changed the face of women on screen with her now-classic sitcom, The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970), a show she earned after her popularity on The Dick Van Dyke Show. Playing a television producer in her thirties who was not only single, but the laugh-out-loud ringleader of a hugely popular sitcom, Mary changed the way women were perceived on screen, making a cultural impact with her character in the age of second-wave feminism.

After seven seasons, three spin-off sitcoms following popular characters from the show, and a staggering 29 Emmy wins, the show was intentionally wrapped up by Mary and fellow co-creator Alan Burns in 1977. While there were several attempts by CBS to revive the show in alternative forms, like The Mary Tyler Moore Hour (1979) and Mary (1985-86), none were as successful as the original show, with Mary writing in her autobiography After All (1995) that she wasn’t happy with the direction of the latter revival.

Mary continued to run her production company, MTM Enterprises, into the ‘80s, producing numerous TV shows and five plays throughout the decade until it was sold in 1988. She later appeared in the TV movie Mary and Rhoda (2000), which followed her and co-star Valerie Harper’s characters reuniting, and reprised her original role as Laura Petrie in The Dick Van Dyke Show Revisited (2004). She went on to receive the Screen Actors Guild’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011.

Mary passed away in 2017, leaving an indelible mark on film history as both a pioneering actress and producer.

As the effortless, leather-clad Fonzie in Happy Days (1974), Henry Winkler’s character became a breakout on the popular sitcom, where he was bumped up from secondary character to main cast following his huge popularity with fans. A typical greaser with a tough reputation – and a motorcycle to boot – Fonzie was the ultimate cool guy character who later revealed a heart of gold when he moved into the Cunningham family’s attic apartment, serving as an older brother figure to Richie, and being treated like a son by Howard and Marion.

Henry went on to appear in all 255 episodes of the popular sitcom, as well as the animated spin-off The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang (1980), which followed some of the Happy Days gang time-travelling with a dog called Mr. Cool.

After Happy Days ended in 1984, Henry went on to enjoy a hugely successful TV career, even finding a career resurgence in the 2000s when he joined Arrested Development (2003) as Barry Zuckerkorn, the Bluth family’s bumbling defence attorney. He also joined the cast of Parks and Recreation in 2013 as Dr. Saperstein, and was the deuteragonist to Bill Hader’s titular Barry (2018), a role which won him the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.

Henry is still regularly acting, having over 100 movies and TV shows under his belt, and most recently appeared in the film Normal (2025) alongside Bob Odenkirk and Lena Headey.

One third of the original crime-fighting, finger-gun-toting Charlie’s Angels (1976), alongside Farrah Fawcett and Kate Jackson, Jaclyn Smith’s Kelly Garrett was the only “Angel” who appeared in every episode of the show during its five-season run. Her intelligence and emotional sensitivity, combined with her strength of character and martial arts skills, earned her popularity with fans and later the future title as head of the Townsend Agency, where she protected the elusive Charlie’s legacy.

After the show ended in 1981, Jaclyn portrayed former First Lady Jackie Kennedy in the TV film Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy (1981), earning her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Miniseries or TV Film. She later went on to reprise her role as Kelly with cameo appearances in the films Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (2003), where she had a heart-to-heart with Drew Barrymore’s character, and later the Kristen Stewart-led Charlie’s Angels (2019).

While she has continued to act sporadically, most recently with an appearance in Doctor Odyssey (2025), Jaclyn Smith has long been the owner of a multi-million dollar business empire, with ventures in fashion, home textiles, and skincare. Her first clothing collection for Kmart debuted in 1985 and sparked a 36-year partnership, with Jaclyn setting a precedent for celebrities to own their own brand, rather than endorsing others.

The no-nonsense tomboy foil to the sweet and perky Shirley Feeney, Laverne Defazio was half the heart of the Happy Days spin-off Laverne & Shirley (1983), with both characters being introduced in a 1976 episode of the original show as friends of Fonzie. Set in the 1950s, the show follows the best friends, roommates, and polar opposites as they work together at a brewery in Milwaukee and aspire to make their dreams come true.

As well as the show itself being an overnight hit, actress Penny Marshall’s Laverne received particular attention from viewers for her bold demeanour and quippy retorts, offering a different image of womanhood on TV that was bold and unapologetically smart.

After receiving Golden Globe nominations for her portrayal over the show’s eight-season run, Penny went on to break more barriers behind the scenes, becoming the first female director to have a film gross more than $100 million at the US box office for Big (1988), starring Tom Hanks. She later directed the Robin Williams and Robert De Niro-led Awakenings (1990), earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, and A League of Their Own (1992), her second film with Tom Hanks (There’s no crying in baseball!) that also starred Madonna and Geena Davis.

After decades of successful directorial work and occasional acting roles, Penny passed away in 2018 – an ‘L’, like the monogram often emblazoned on Laverne’s outfits, was included on her headstone.

Yet another successful spin-off of pop culture juggernaut Happy Days, intergalactic sitcom Mork and Mindy (1978) saw an alien named Mork (Robin Williams) journey to Earth to study human behaviour, namely that of Mindy (Pam Dawber), a young journalist. Pam was personally selected for the role by Happy Days creator Garry Marshall, despite having little acting experience and not formally auditioning for the part, and her chemistry with fellow then-unknown actor Robin Williams helped launch the show to stardom.

After the show ended in 1982, Pam starred in the CBS sitcom My Sister Sam (1986) alongside Rebecca Schaeffer, who played her younger sister. After Rebecca was killed by an obsessed fan in 1989, Pam became a staunch gun control activist, telling ABC News she knew she had to “make a difference”. Together with her My Sister Sam co-stars, Pam testified before Congress for more stringent gun laws.

Alongside her activism, Pam reunited with Robin Williams on the comedy series The Crazy Ones in 2013, once again playing his love interest over 30 years after Mork and Mindy ended. While she has mostly retired from acting, she had a guest arc on NCIS in 2021 opposite her husband Mark Harmon, who led the long-running show as Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

A snobby socialite (with seriously enviable hair), Blair Warner was one of the teens at Eastland School mentored by Mrs. Garrett in The Facts of Life (1979), a hugely popular spin-off of Diff’rent Strokes that followed a housemother at a fictional girls’ boarding school. Over the course of the show, which gained momentum in the ‘80s, Lisa Whelchel’s character went from being a stuck-up, blue-blooded Manhattanite to a more compassionate, loving friend to both her housemother and the other teens around her, a character arc which fans loved following.  

Lisa reprised her role as Blair in the spin-off films The Facts of Life Goes to Paris (1982) and The Facts of Life Down Under (1987), as well as The Facts of Life Reunion in 2001. While she took on fewer acting roles in the 2000s, she was a co-runner-up on Survivor: Philippines in 2012, appearing as one of the show’s celebrity contestants, and went on to appear on Survivor host Jeff Probst’s talk show as a co-host.

In 2021, she appeared on Jimmy Kimmel's Live in Front of a Studio Audience, which reunited sitcom casts for a special one-off live episode, where The Facts of Life cast recreated the third-season episode, “Kids Can Be Cruel”. Recently, Lisa opened the doors of her stunning Los Angeles townhouse to Realtor.com, revealing that she took inspiration from the beloved sitcom’s theme song when decorating her abode – by learning to “take the good” and “take the bad”.

The literary-minded heart of The Waltons (1972), John-Boy Walton, was the eldest of seven surviving children in the popular historical drama, set in rural Virginia just after the Great Depression. Loosely based on the life of creator Earl Hamner, Jr., John-Boy served as his on-screen counterpart – a thoughtful, aspiring writer whose popularity helped turn the show’s iconic closing phrase “Goodnight, John-Boy” into a full-blown cultural phenomenon. For his performance as the beloved character, Richard Thomas earned a slew of award nominations, even picking up an Emmy in 1973.

Richard left the show in 1977 with the desire to pursue other acting opportunities, and while his departure saddened fans and prompted a shake-up in the show’s structure, he told Smashing Interviews Magazine, “I never intended to do more than the first five years. When I left in year five, I didn’t think the show had lost much…but I was very happy in the show.” He went on to portray Bill Denbrough in the Tim Curry-led miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s IT (1990), and later returned to the role of John-Boy in the holiday specials A Walton Thanksgiving Reunion (1993) and A Walton Wedding (1995).

Richard continued to be a familiar face on TV into the 2000s, playing Special Agent Frank Gaad in The Americans (2013), and most recently played Nathan Davis, Wendy Byrde’s father, in season 4 of Netflix’s Ozark in 2022. That same year, he took to the stage as Atticus Finch in a national tour of the Broadway adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird, and is set to star on Broadway in The Balusters in 2026 opposite Hamilton alum Renée Elise Goldsberry.

Another rural American classic, the 1974 TV adaptation of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie saw Melissa Gilbert take on the role of Laura herself, the spirited young daughter of a pioneer family navigating life on the American frontier. The series became an audience favourite, spearheaded by Melissa’s performance as the central character, and went on to run for nine seasons.

Following the show’s conclusion, Melissa reprised her role as Laura in several spin-off television films and continued her acting career, mainly with a plethora of TV movies. She served as president of the Screen Actors Guild from 2001 to 2005, and even went on to play Caroline “Ma” Ingalls, her on-screen mother, in a national tour of the Little House on the Prairie musical in 2009.

Melissa appeared in season 14 of Dancing with the Stars, managing to finish in fifth place with her partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy despite an injury while on the show. While she still occasionally acts – including a recent appearance in the popular Western series When Calls the Heart (2025) – Melissa spends much of her time running the successful women’s lifestyle brand Modern Prairie. Reflecting on the 50th anniversary of Little House on the Prairie on The Kelly Clarkson Show, Melissa said: “We were also telling the stories of America in 1974, through the lens of 1874. And we’re still telling the same stories.”