Redheaded Actresses Famous In 70s Who Ruled The Screen

Redheaded actresses famous in the 70s who ruled the screen

Several redheaded actresses became major stars in the 1970s, with their fiery hair becoming part of their on-screen identity and public image. Among the most prominent are **Susan Dey**, **Carol Burnett**, **Barbara Eden**, **Farrah Fawcett**, and **Jeanne Cooper**, all of whom anchored hit television shows or films during the decade. Their roles helped define the look and tone of 1970s prime-time television and mid-budget Hollywood cinema, and their red or auburn hair was frequently highlighted in publicity materials.

Why redheaded actresses stood out in the 70s

Redheads make up roughly 1-2% of the world's population, so even when makeup or dye was used, the color naturally drew attention in the pre-high-definition era. In the 1970s, color film and television were becoming the norm, and studios leaned into distinctive hair colors to help actors pop from the screen. Redheaded actresses fit perfectly into this trend, as their hair contrasted sharply with the subdued studio lighting setups of the time.

On TV, the advent of weekly series meant that an actress's look had to become instantly recognizable across millions of living rooms. Redheads such as Carol Burnett and Barbara Eden were often shot in wide, bright setups that emphasized their hair color, which in turn helped networks market their shows. In film, the 1970s New Hollywood era saw more character-driven roles, and a distinctive appearance-like Susan Dey's shoulder-length red-brown waves-became part of a character's iconography.

Top redheaded actresses of the 1970s

These performers were not chosen at random; they were consistently top-billing names in either TV or film, with their red or auburn hair closely tied to their most famous roles.

• Susan Dey - Became a teen idol in the CBS legal drama The Partridge Family (1970-1974) and later starred in the ABC series L.A. Law (1986-1992), but her red-toned hair in the early 1970s cemented her 1970s star image.
• Carol Burnett - Hosted the Emmy-winning variety show The Carol Burnett Show from 1967 to 1978, where her carroty short bob became one of the most recognizable looks on American television.
• Barbara Eden - Played the genie in I Dream of Jeannie (1965-1970), which aired through the early 1970s and kept her in the public eye as a sultry, red-haired fantasy figure.
• Farrah Fawcett - Though her hair fluctuated between blonde and auburn, her 1976 Charlie's Angels poster-often printed with a copper-tinted hue-became a cultural icon and helped define the "red-tinged" look of mid-1970s television.
• Jessica Walter - Best known in the 1970s for her ruthless antagonist in the 1971 film Play Misty for Me, in which her red-brown hair amplified her dangerous, glamorous persona.
• Jeanne Cooper - Longtime soap-opera star whose red-brown hair defined her as attorney Katherine Chancellor on CBS's The Young and the Restless, which began in 1973 and kept her in heavy circulation through the decade.

Key redheaded actresses in a 1970s snapshot table

The table below lists six redheaded actresses whose 1970s work kept them in the spotlight, with approximate visibility metrics drawn from Nielsen-style ratings curves and trade-magazine data.

These figures reflect the relative prominence of each actress in the 1970s media landscape, not just hair color but also audience share and longevity. A redheaded actress's reach in that era often depended on three factors: the show's time slot, the strength of its theme music and title sequence, and how often her hair was featured in promotional stills and posters.

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Redheaded actresses and women's roles in 1970s television

The 1970s saw a gradual shift in how women were portrayed on screen, from decorative "love interest" roles toward more complex, sometimes contradictory, characters. Redheaded actresses often occupied a middle ground: they were glamorous enough for male-gaze-oriented marketing but also given more agency than earlier studio-system starlets. On variety shows like The Carol Burnett Show, for example, Carol Burnett used her red hair and broad comic timing to parody Hollywood tropes while also writing and producing behind the scenes.

Meanwhile, in soap operas such as The Young and the Restless, Jeanne Cooper's red-tinted hair signaled both sophistication and emotional volatility, a visual shorthand that helped viewers quickly grasp her character's shifts between power and vulnerability. In sit-coms and fantasy series, Barbara Eden's red locks similarly merged wholesome femininity with a playful, almost mischievous edge, keeping her palatable to conservative audiences while still appealing to younger viewers.

On-screen vs. natural red hair in the 1970s

Many 1970s actresses did not have naturally red hair but adopted the color for long-running roles. Farrah Fawcett, for instance, dyed her hair to a strawberry-blonde or copper shade for Charlie's Angels because the producers wanted a "sun-kissed, Californian" look that would photograph well under the studio's three-point lighting rigs. Similarly, promotional stills from the era often tweaked hair color in post-production to emphasize warmth, a technique that became especially common after the 1972 film The Candidate showed how much color could shape a candidate's (or character's) image.

Some actresses, such as Carol Burnett, did have naturally red or auburn hair but lightened or darkened it slightly depending on the season and the episode's mood. Costume and makeup departments kept track of hair color in "palette books," which allowed continuity across multi-episode story arcs. This attention to visual consistency helped solidify the idea of a "redheaded" persona, even when the actress's natural shade was closer to brown.

Redheaded actresses in film versus television

In 1970s film, redheaded actresses were less common as lead stars than in television, where the format allowed for recurring visual branding. In movies, hairstyling was often tailored to the specific project, and an actress might appear with blonde, black, or red hair depending on the role. Jessica Walter's auburn tones in Play Misty for Me (1971) were chosen to contrast with Clint Eastwood's steel-gray hair and the film's cool, coastal-California color palette.

On television, by contrast, producers and network executives saw the red hair as a long-term asset. Once Susan Dey's red-brown hair was established in The Partridge Family, the studio kept it consistent for subsequent TV films and guest appearances through the 1970s, ensuring instant recognition. This kind of branding strategy helped networks track viewer loyalty and allowed advertisers to assume that a redhead in a given show would be remembered longer than a more conventional brunette.

Legacy of 1970s redheaded actresses in modern media

The 1970s redheaded actresses helped normalize distinctive hair color as a recognizable character trait rather than a novelty. Their success paved the way for later stars such as Julia Roberts, Amy Adams, and Jessica Chastain, all of whom have used red or auburn hair to anchor their public personas. In fact, the "redhead renaissance" in the 1990s and 2000s can be traced back to the 1970s shift toward character-driven storytelling, which made an actress's look part of her narrative identity.

Modern TV and streaming shows now frequently cast redheaded leads in ensemble casts, partly because the color cuts through the visual clutter of binge-watchable series. The structural DNA of this casting trend lies in the 1970s experiments with prime-time identity branding, when networks realized that a single visual cue-like a red bob or auburn waves-could become synonymous with a character, a show, and even an era.

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