1983: JENNIFER BEALS
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Find Out Who The Hollywood “It Girl” Was The Year You Were Born
If you haven't seen Flashdance, Beals's inspiring dance movie, change that immediately. At the very least, listen to the soundtrack. What a ~feeling~ it'll give you.
1984: LISA BONET
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Find Out Who The Hollywood “It Girl” Was The Year You Were Born
In 1984 The Cosby Show premiered with Bonet as Denise Huxtable, the daughter with amazing fashion sense.
1985: MOLLY RINGWALD
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The 1980s belonged to Ringwald, the awkward, lovable, gorgeous lead in John Hughes classic after John Hughes classic. In three consecutive years she starred in Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Pretty in Pink, cementing her place in the teen movie hall of fame.
1986: JANET JACKSON
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With the release of her album Control, Jackson gave us such iconic songs as "Nasty" and "What Have You Done for Me Lately," and managed to top the Billboard 200 for the first time in her career.
1978: CHER
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While already a music and TV star, Moonstruck showed that Cher had real acting chops. She won an Oscar for her performance.
1988: MELANIE GRIFFITH
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She was nominated for an Oscar for her role in Working Girl, in which she played Tess, a woman who was not to be underestimated.
1960: JANET LEIGH
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Fans were surely scared to take showers after seeing her terrifying scene in Psycho.
1961: AUDREY HEPBURN
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What's more glamorous than Hepburn in this black dress, cigarette holder placed elegantly in hand, jewelry dripping from her neck as Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's? She can look put-together yet convey loneliness so perfectly.
1962: RITA MORENO
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Moreno won the Oscar for her breathtaking portrayal of Anita in West Side Story.
1963: ELIZABETH TAYLOR
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She proved her worth as the lead in Cleopatra, whose $1 million budget made it the most expensive movie of its time.
1964: JULIE ANDREWS
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She was Mary Poppins, the perfect nanny who knew that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. It also helped her win an Oscar.
1965: ELIZABETH MONTGOMERY
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Bewitched entered its second season in 1965 and Montgomery continued to, well, bewitch fans with her twitching nose.
1966: DIANA ROSS
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Ross was the star of The Supremes and, later, her own solo career. When every song you sing becomes a bona fide hit, maybe you're an It girl for life.
1967: ARETHA FRANKLIN
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"Respect" ruled the Billboard charts in 1967, an anthem of womanhood and strength. And that's just one of the hits she released that year!
1967: FAYE DUNAWAY
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Giving new (or, come to think of it, old) meaning to the term "ride-or-die" couple, Dunaway starred with Warren Beatty in Bonnie and Clyde.
1968: BARBRA STREISAND
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After starring as Fanny Brice on Broadway, Streisand took the role to Hollywood for the movie version of Funny Girl, belting "Don't Rain on My Parade" and earning an Oscar for her incredible performance.
1969: CAROL BURNETT
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Burnett is a comedy legend. Her classic program The Carol Burnett Show boasted its highest ratings in 1969.
1970: ALI MACGRAW
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Love Story, a tragic romance, became a huge hit and brought the phrase "love means never having to say you're sorry" into the parlance. MacGraw played the beautiful, doomed lead and broke everyone's heart in the best possible way.
1971: TINA TURNER
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Turner always gave electrifying performances, but her cover of "Proud Mary" (with Ike) took the cake, starting slow and building to pure euphoria. The single was released on their album "Workin' Together."
1972: CARLY SIMON
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Simon released "You're So Vain," one of the best revenge songs in the game (past or present), providing women everywhere with a great way to say "eff you" to their ex.
1973: LIZA MINNELLI
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Minelli won an Oscar in '73 for her work in Cabaret.
1974: PAM GRIER
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With the most enviable hair and wardrobe in the game, Grier's Foxy Brown kicked ass and looked confident as hell doing so.
1975: DONNA SUMMER
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Summer kicked off her legacy as the "Queen of Disco" in '75, with the release of "Love to Love You Baby."
1976: FARRAH FAWCETT
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Fawcett skyrocketed to fame with Charlie's Angels. A People article declared her everyone's favorite angel because of her "wholesome, she-leopard sexiness."
1977: DIANE KEATON
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Seeing Keaton in that suit in Annie Hall is still a life-changing event for many young women trying to figure out their sense of style and self.
1978: OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN
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As Sandy in Grease she was the good-girl-next-door turned bad-boys-dream. Was the musical maybe an indictment of the way women have to change to accommodate men? LOL, no. But the songs were fun and Newton-John dazzled.
1979: MERYL STREEP
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Streep won an Oscar for her gripping performance in Kramer vs. Kramer and also stole the show in Manhattan,as the woman smart enough to get away from Woody Allen.
1980: GOLDIE HAWN
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Her role in Private Benjamin made her a bona fide star.
1981: DOLLY PARTON
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Parton starred in 9 to 5 in 1980 and recorded the titular song for the movie, which topped the charts the following year.
1982: DEBRA WINGER
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In An Officer and a Gentleman you get an award-winning Louis Gossett Jr. performance, Richard Gere in his prime, and an iconic final scene where Gere, in a pristine white Navy uniform, carries off Winger as her fellow factory-workers cheer.
2015: PRIYANKA CHOPRA
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Chopra has long been a star of Bollywood, but in 2015, her ABC show Quantico premiered and she was everywhere, playing the smartest woman in the world, tasked with saving America even as she's accused of terrorism.
1989: NAOMI CAMPBELL
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The model's career and star power rose for most of the late '80s, but it was firmly established that she was a bankable superstar when she appeared on the September issue of Vogue this year. She was the first female black model to do so.
1990: JULIA ROBERTS
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Roberts burst onto the scene with that huge smile in 1988's Mystic Pizza, but it was 1990's Pretty Woman that proved she was the romantic comedy star of her generation.
1991: GONG LI
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Known for her work with director Yimou Zhang, she starred in Raise the Red Lantern, a heartbreaking masterpiece about bonds and betrayal among the wives of a wealthy man.
1991: JODIE FOSTER
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Foster impressively transitioned from child star to adult actress, and her performance as Clarice Starling alongside a truly terrifying Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs defined her career and won her an Oscar.
1992: WHITNEY HOUSTON
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For as long as she was around, Houston was a superstar, belting hit after hit; 1992 marked the release of The Bodyguard, her stratospheric acting role. Watch the "I Have Nothing" video to see how amazingly effortless she makes her work seem.
1993: WHOOPI GOLDBERG
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Sister Act was a huge box office success in which Goldberg sang, danced, and saved the day; and the sequel, Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, was actually fantastic! Every single number in it is just pure joy. Goldberg also starred in Made in America this year.
1994: WINONA RYDER
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She was already beloved for her roles in Heathers, Beetlejuice, and Edward Scissorhands, to name a few, but it was her turn in Reality Bites that helped define '90s angst.
1995: ALICIA SILVERSTONE
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As if anyone could forget about Silverstone's iconic turn as Cher in Clueless. Her style, obliviousness, loyalty, hair, and bad driving ... what was there not to love about her?
1996: RENÉE ZELLWEGER
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ZELLWEGER
Maybe "You had me at 'hello'" seems like a big joke now, but only Zellweger, with her mix of vulnerability and determination, could pull off Jerry Maguire's big line after he comes back to tell her he wants to be with her.
1997: SARAH MICHELLE GELLAR
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Gellar was in Scream 2 and I Know What You Did Last Summer this year, but her most iconic role will always be Buffy Summers. Buffy the Vampire Slayer premiered giving teen (and adult) women (and men) a beautiful heroine whose everyday high-school problems were magnified by her destiny to save the world from great evil.
1998: LAURYN HILL
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As if her music as a Fugees member weren't gift enough to the world, Hill released her first solo album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, in 1998.
1999: BRITNEY SPEARS
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In late 1998, Spears was dancing in a high-school hallway in her schoolgirl uniform, so of course the …Baby One More Time album, which came out early the following year, made her an international superstar.
2000: GABRIELLE UNION
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As the cheerleading captain who wouldn't let her team be stepped on anymore, Union stole the show in 2000's Bring It On. As soon as Union enters (as shown in this incredible GIF), you know her team is going to win — and you really, really want them to.
2001: REESE WITHERSPOON
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"I'll show you how valuable Elle Woods can be," Witherspoon declared in Legally Blonde — and she delivered in spades. Her intelligence and drive throughout prove that people shouldn't look at women as just pretty faces.
2002: HALLE BERRY
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Berry was already a huge movie star by this time and her 2002 Oscar speech for Monster's Ball (after becoming the first black woman to win the Best Actress award) was so emotional and powerful that it further solidified her important place in Hollywood.
2003: BEYONCÉ
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With the release of Dangerously in Love, Beyoncé became a solo artist, laying the foundation for her current world domination.
2004: LINDSAY LOHAN
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Already a huge teen star, Lohan's endearing role as Cady Heron, a lovable, naïve, new girl who accidentally becomes a mean girl (in Mean Girls, duh) will go down as some of her best work.
2005: RACHEL MCADAMS
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In 2005, after proving she was good at comedy (Mean Girls) and romance (The Notebook), she combined the two genres with Wedding Crashers. She and Ryan Gosling also made people swoon with their super-hot MTV Movies Awards Kiss.
2006: ANNE HATHAWAY
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After she stole your heart by turning into literal royalty in Princess Diaries, Hathaway snagged the lead in The Devil Wears Prada. She didn't get to be delightfully mean like Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt, but she still charmed the pants off viewers.
2007: JENNIFER HUDSON
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She may have placed seventh on American Idol, but she won the Oscar in 2007 for her role as Effie in Dreamgirls.
2008: KRISTEN STEWART
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Stewart got the role a million girls dreamed of when they read Twilight — and she got to kiss Robert Pattinson.
2009: LEA MICHELE
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"Being a part of something special makes you special, right?" Lea Michele asks this in the Glee pilot, as Rachel Berry, and boy, oh boy, did that prove to be true.
2010: EMMA STONE
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Stone's small but great part in Superbad made her one to watch, but it was her hilarious, vulnerable, go-for-broke comedy chops in 2010's Easy A that proved she was a star who could carry a movie.
2011: JENNIFER LAWRENCE
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In 2010, Lawrence starred in Winter's Bone and got nominated for an Oscar — and so a hype machine was born. In 2011 she played Mystique in X-Men: First Class and was announced as Katniss in The Hunger Games.
2012: KERRY WASHINGTON
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Remember how messed up it was that Washington was the first black female lead on a network show since the '70s? So messed up! Leave it to Washington and Shonda Rhimes to fix a mistake that big.
2013: LUPITA NYONG'O
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Nyong'o amazed critics and fans alike with her raw, intense, and stunning performance in 12 Years a Slave. She won an Oscar for her work in the film and stunned on every red carpet she walked. Now it's time to cast her in a billion more movies, Hollywood!
2014: GINA RODRIGUEZ
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Initially the premise of Jane the Virgin seemed a little hard to get behind (after all, isn't it really mean to have a woman who hasn't had sex still get pregnant?), but the second Rodriguez appeared onscreen as strong, vulnerable, intelligent, kind, passionate Jane, it was clear this show was TV gold.
