By Wonderwall.com Editors
9:00pm PST, Jan 17, 2023
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To celebrate what would have been Betty White's 101st birthday on Jan. 17, 2023, join Wonderwall.com as we take a look back at her and more of our favorite leading ladies when they were young starlets early in their careers…
Wow! Betty White looked gorgeous in this portrait from 1954 when she was in her early 30s.
Keep reading to see more stunning older leading ladies then and now…
MORE: See what older leading men when they were handsome young stars
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Did you know that late "Golden Girls" star Betty White was once a pin-up girl? The comedy legend passed away at 99 — just days before her 100th birthday — on New Year's Eve in 2021.
MORE: Betty White's life in photos
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Helen Mirren has been nominated for four Oscars and one one — for her work in 2007's "The Queen."
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Maggie Smith was in her early 30s when she posed for this publicity portrait for her 1967 film "The Honey Pot."
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Two-time Oscar winner and four-time Emmy winner Maggie Smith these days is best known for her work as elderly and fiesty matriarch Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, on "Downton Abbey."
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Diane Keaton was in her mid-20s when she starred in the 1972 film "The Godfather."
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Diane Keaton had already been nominated for a Tony Award for her work on Broadway by the time she appeared in the movie "The Godfather" in the early '70s. Over the next several decades, the frequent Woody Allen collaborator earned four Academy Award nominations — and won an Oscar for her performance in 1977's "Annie Hall."
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Jane Fonda looked picture-perfect in a portrait taken circa 1960 when she was in her early 20s.
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Two-time Oscar winner Jane Fonda still looks incredible in her mid-80s!
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Ellen Burstyn looked lovely in this portrait taken circa 1965 when she was in her early 30s.
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"The Exorcist" and "Requiem For a Dream" actress Ellen Burstyn has enjoyed an impressive, enduring career and has an Academy Award, a Tony Award and two Primetime Emmys to her name.
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Cicely Tyson posed for this portrait circa 1960 when she was in her mid-30s — a decade after she started her Hollywood career and a dozen years before she earned an Oscar nomination for her performance in "Sounder."
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Oscar-nominated "Sounder" actress Cicely Tyson looked absolutely gorgeous at the premiere of Tyler Perry's "A Fall from Grace" in January 2020. She died less than a year later at 96.
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Isabelle Huppert has always been a stunner. The freckle-faced beauty is seen here in a portrait from 1971, the year she made her television debut in her native France at 18.
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The style! The sass! The flawless skin! Oscar-nominated French actress Isabelle Huppert is still a beauty even as she approaches her 70s.
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Before she was a 21-time Oscar nominee, blonde beauty Meryl Streep was a high school cheerleader. She's seen here in 1976, the same year she earned her first Tony Award nomination, two years before her first Emmy win and four years before she took home her first Oscar.
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Meryl Streep is practically a national treasure: She has 21 Oscar nominations to her name — and she's won three of them.
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Rita Moreno raised temperatures in this portrait from the '50s when she was in her 20s.
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Rita Moreno is now in her 90s. She's also an EGOT winner with an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award to her name.
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Susan Sarandon smoldered in a promotional photo for 1980's "Loving Couples" when she was in her early 30s.
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Susan Sarandon now has five Oscar nominations and one trophy to her name.
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Who's the beachy babe? It's Sally Field at 21 in 1967!
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We really, really like Sally Field — and not just because she's a two-time Oscar winner.
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Sissy Spacek looked absolutely stunning in 1972's "Prime Cut" when she was in her early 20s. before she was an actress, she was a model.
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Sissy Spacek has been nominated for six Oscars during her long career — and she won one of them for her performance in 1980's "Coal Miner's Daughter."
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Seven-time Grammy winner Madonna is now in her 60s.
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In case there were any doubts about where actress Kate Hudson gets her good looks, check out this portrait of her mom, Goldie Hawn, in 1967 when she was 21.
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Oscar winner Goldie Hawn is still blonde and beautiful in her 70s!
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Oscar- and Grammy-winning singer-actress Cher still looks gorgeous in her 70s!
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Jessica Lange was in her mid-20s when she starred alongside an equally young Jeff Bridges in the 1976 movie "King Kong."
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Jessica Lange now has six Academy Award nominations and two wins to her name.
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Charlotte Rampling was a true English rose in this 1967 portrait, which was taken when she was about 21 around the time she made her big screen debut in her home country.
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American audiences got a bit of a late start with Oscar- and Emmy-nominated English actress Charlotte Rampling, who's in her 70s now.
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Hello, Leia! Carrie Fisher donned one of the most iconic costumes in cinema history in 1983's "Return of the Jedi," which she filmed in her 20s.
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The late, great Carrie Fisher shot into the spotlight as Princess Leia in "Star Wars" in the '70s and in the decades that followed, she became an in-demand Hollywood script doctor, a three-time Emmy nominee and a bestselling author before her death at 60 in 2016.
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Emmanuelle Riva made her acting debut in her native France in 1957 when she was about 20 and earned her first BAFTA nomination for her work in "Hiroshima Mon Amour" just a few years later. Is it any wonder why Japanese actor Eiji Okada, her co-star in the romantic drama, couldn't keep his hands off her angelic face?!
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It wasn't until 2012 that the late French actress Emmanuelle Riva, who died in 2017, made a splash in Hollywood when she starred in "Amour." Boy, were we missing out!
