These 11 stars of the 1960s are still going strong after all these decades.
Sally Field
Sally Field broke out in the 1965 with her starring role on Gidget (above), which she followed up with The Flying Nun, making her one of the biggest — and youngest — TV stars of the 1960s.
Since then, she’s won two Best Actress Oscars — for 1979’s Norma Rae and 1984’s Places in the Heart — and demonstrates empathy and vast range in films from Sybil to Smokey and the Bandit to Mrs. Doubtfire to Forrest Gump to Lincoln. And of course her “You like me, right now, you like me” Oscars speech for Places in the Heart is the gold standard of award speeches.
Last year she stood out in 80 for Brady, proving she’s still got comic chops — though the film note that she’s still several years off from 80.
Shirley MacLaine
Shirley MacLaine appeared in Broadway musicals as a teenager in the 1950s before making her film debut in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1955The Trouble With Harry. She also starred in Around the World in 80 Days (1956), Some Came Running (1958) and Ask Any Girl (1959) before delivering a heartbreaking, unforgettable performance in the knowing 1960 comedy The Apartment, opposite Jack Lemmon.
She further established herself as one of the greatest stars of the 1960s with roles in The Children’s Hour (1961), Irma la Douce (1963) and Sweet Charity (1969).
She would go one to win the Academy Award for Best Actress for 1983’s Terms of Endearment, and to earn endless accolades for films like Steel Magnolias (1989), Postcards From the Edge (1990), and Bernie (2011).
Most recently, the now-90-year-old was a standout in the second season of Only Murders in the Building.
Warren Beatty
Good genes: Shirley MacLaine’s little brother Warren Beatty broke out with several guest appearances on the endearing 1959-63 sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, and quickly became a matinee idol with 1960’s Splendor in the Grass, opposite Natalie Wood, which made them both huge stars of the 1960s.
In the next decades he went on a legendary run that includes Bonnie and Clyde (1967), McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971), The Parallax View (1974), and Shampoo (1975), then turned to directing and starring with Heaven Can Wait (1978), Reds (1981), and the fabulously weird Bulworth (1998). He won the Best Director Oscar for Reds. He co-starred with Annette Bening in 1991’s Bugsy, and the two have been married for more than three decades.
Warren Beatty hasn’t done much since directing and starring in 2016’s Rules Don’t Apply, but he’s still going strong: He was in charming form when he surprisingly popped up recently in the TCM special Tracy Zooms In.
Dustin Hoffman
A breakout star in 1967’s The Graduate (above), Dustin Hoffman has been consistently great since. His memorable 1960s films included Midnight Cowboy, and he’s since gone on to star in films from Straw Dogs (1971) to All the President’s Men (1976) to Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) to Tootsie (1982) to Rain Man (1988). He won his two Best Acting Oscars for Kramer vs. Kramer and Rain Man.
In more recent decades, his choices have remained consistently interesting and surprising: We especially liked his turns in Wag the Dog (1997), Runaway Jury (2003), I Heart Huckabees (2004) and The Meyerowitz Stories (2017).
He’s still going strong with a slate of projects that includes Francis Ford Coppola’s latest, Megalopolis.
Ron Howard
Ron Howard broke out as young Opie on the 1960s classic The Andy Griffith Show (above) and appeared in The Music Man (1962) before going on to movie stardom in the next decade with American Graffiti (1973) — and of course further TV stardom for his role on Happy Days.
But at 69, he may be even better known for his achievements behind the camera. He’s one of Hollywood’s most in-demand directors and producers, known for Night Shift (1982), Splash (1984), Cocoon (1985), Backdraft (a 1991 hit starring another star of the 1960s who comes up later on this list), Apollo 13 (1995), and Frost/Nixon. (2008) And of course he won the Oscar for Best Picture and Best Director for A Beautiful Mind (2001).
He’s one of Hollywood’s most prolific producers, and one of his current projects is an upcoming documentary about composer John Williams, with whom he collaborated on 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story.
Jodie Foster
Jodie Foster, seen above in a 1970 episode of Kung Fu, broke into the industry with a Coppertone ad at age three, and became one of the fastest-rising stars of the 1960s by earning roles on shows like Mayberry RFD, which starred her brother, Buddy, as well as The Doris Day Show, Gunsmoke and The Courtship of Eddie’s Father.
She quickly proved herself a powerhouse with astonishing range, starring in Freaky Friday and Taxi Driver in 1976, when she was barely a teenager, making her one of the youngest stars of the 1970s.
In the ensuing decades, she earned the Best Actress Oscar for 1998’s The Accused and 1991’s Silence of the Lambs, starred in films including Nell (1994), Contact (1997), Panic Room (2004), Elysium (2013) and The Mauritanian (2021). She’s also made her mark as a director with films like Little Man Tate (1991), The Beaver (2011) and Money Monster (2016).
She was just nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Nyad, and she was also our favorite part of HBO’s True Detective,: Night Country, for which she just won a Golden Globe.
Anthony Hopkins
Foster’s Silence of the Lambs co-star, Anthony Hopkins, was doing grown-up roles when she was a child star, but they’re both thriving now. Hopkins’ 1960s roles include The Lion in Winter (1968, as seen above) and Hamlet (1969).
His very busy subsequent decades included Magic (1978), The Elephant Man (1980), Silence of the Lambs (1991) — for which he won a Best Actor Oscar with just 16 minutes of screen time — Nixon (1995), Amistad (1997), Hannibal (2001), The Human Stain (2003), Alexander (2004) and Hitchcock (2012). Along the way he’s also dropped into the Thor, Transformers and Mission: Impossible Franchises.
But perhaps his best work of all was for 2020’s The Father, in which he earned his second Best Actor Oscar for his role as an octogenarian losing his faculties. He does almost everything in a role that an actor can do.
The 86-year-old’s long list of awards includes four BAFTA Awards and an Olivier Award, as well as being knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. He most recently played King Herod in the Biblical epic Mary.
Rita Moreno
Rita Moreno had roles in the 1950s classics Singin’ in the Rain and The King and I before breaking out in 1961’s West Side Story (above), and becoming one of the most beloved stars of the 1960s — and today.
She’s gone on to rarefied EGOT prestige by winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony, one of many accomplishments in a career that also includes receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Kennedy Center Honor, and a Peabody Award. Her long list of credits includes 1969’s Popi, 1981’s The Four Seasons, 1998’s The Slums of Beverly Hills, and Steven Spielberg’s 2021 remake of West Side Story.
Last year, she earned laughs alongside Sally Field and the final person on this list in 80 for Brady, and turned up in Fast X. She never slows down.
Kurt Russell
There’s a (false) urban myth that Walt Disney’s last words were “Kurt Russell.” Disney rightly saw a bright future for Russell, who became one of the fastest-rising stars of the 1960s with The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (above). He soon signed a contract with Disney, starring in films like The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969).
He soon because the tough guy we all know and love in films like Escape From New York (1981), The Thing (1982), Big Trouble in Little China (1986) and Tango & Cash (1989), but proved his serious acting chops in Silkwood (1983), Backdraft (1991) and Vanilla Sky (2001). He may have been most endearing in 1993’s Tombstone.
The 72-year-old’s best roles lately have been in Quentin Tarantino films, including Death Proof (2007), The Hateful Eight (2015) and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019). He also stood out in the Fast and Guardians of the Galaxy franchises.
He’s now starring in the Apple+ series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters alongside his son, Wyatt Russell.
Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood, who turned 94 in May, appeared on the TV show Rawhide at the dawn of the 1960s, and quickly established himself as one of the most iconic stars of the decade in Sergio Leone’s “Man With No Name” trilogy: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (1966).
He loomed large over the next two decades with his Dirty Harry franchise, but his greatest contribution to cinema may be his work as a director: He has four Oscars, two each for directing and producing The Unforgiven (1993) and Million Dollar Baby (2005). His other outstanding films include Mystic River (2003), Letters From Iwo Jima (2006) and American Sniper (2014).
He continues to star in and direct films — his latest was Juror #2, now doing nice business on HBO Max.
Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda became one of the biggest stars of the 1960s thanks to hits like Cat Ballou, and buoyed her reputation with films like Barefoot and the Park and They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (above) before the decade was over. She also ended up on a lot of dorm walls thanks to 1968’s Barbarella.
But she owned the 1970s: In 1971, she won her first Best Actress Oscar for a daring turn in Klute, and won her second for 1978’s Coming Home. She has also been nominated for four additional Oscars.
At 86, Jane Fonda seems busier than ever. Last year alone she starred with Sally Field in the aforementioned 80 for Brady and with Diane Keaton in Book Club: The Next Chapter, and will is providing voice acting for Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken. She also recently wrapped up a long TV run on Grace and Frankie.
Like Stars of the 1960s? Well…
You might also like this of 1960s Movies That Are Still a Pleasure to Watch, or this list of Gen X Movie Stars Gone Too Soon.
Main image: Jane Fonda in Circle of Love. Continental Distributing Inc.