Sammy Tran articles

Long before streaming made it possible to watch an entire season in a weekend, Americans spent years checking in with the same television families one episode at a time. The sitcom mothers of the 1970s and 1980s ranged from traditional homemakers to lawyers, reporters, waitresses, musicians, divorcees, widows, and women who gleefully rejected practically every rule of respectable motherhood. Some offered comfort, some delivered tough love, and a few probably taught viewers exactly what not to do. Together, these memorable characters helped redefine what a TV mom could look like.

Behind the harmonies of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan was a painful romantic fallout that lingered for decades and produced unforgettable lyrics.

Behind Donald O'Connor's famous grin was a performer whose life was repeatedly shaken by exhaustion, illness, and a body pushed far beyond its limits.

Mention 1978 and younger listeners may immediately reach for the Bee Gees, Queen, or the soundtrack to Grease. The actual radio landscape was much bigger, with soft rock, disco, soul, country-pop, and arena rock all fighting for space while Saturday Night Fever turned disco into a full-blown cultural phenomenon. Plenty of songs that dominated American radio that year have since slipped out of everyday pop culture, even though one chorus can still transport a whole generation straight back to the car radio.

The 1970s gave American listeners disco, arena rock, singer-songwriters, punk, and an astonishing collection of records that sound as if they slipped past the gatekeepers when nobody was looking. For this list, “one-hit wonder” refers to acts remembered in the United States for one major Top 40 breakthrough, even when they enjoyed longer careers or greater success overseas. Once you revisit what some of these songs were actually about, the decade starts looking considerably stranger than the soft-focus nostalgia suggests.

Paul Benedict had a career that stretched across stage, film, children’s television, and sharp American comedy—but there's more to him than most people know.

Jack Cassidy had the kind of charm that could light up a Broadway stage, butt years after his shocking demise, his son revealed a more complicated truth.

Cass Elliot had one of the most unforgettable voices of the 1960s—but one of the most personal parts of her life stayed hidden for years.

Every great sitcom needs a strong lead, but the funniest person in the room is not always the one whose name appears first in the credits.