If you’re the kind of person who occasionally gets the sneaking feeling that people used to have more fun than they do now, the following images may support your suspicions.
Historic New Year’s celebrations that you would have liked to have attended – as a celebrating party guest or just as a fly on the wall? Of course there are some. To be able to observe how that star, that legend behaves after drink number five? That would have been nice.
Here we offer a glimpse into the New Year’s Eve party nights of yesteryear; with stars, celebrities, Personalities – how you know them… or you just don’t know them. Happy New Year everyone!
“The Kings of Hollywood” – that’s the title of this snapshot of the New Year’s Eve party at Romanoff’s Club in Beverly Hills on December 31, 1957. From left: Clark Gable, Van Heflin, Gary Cooper and James Stewart.
Twenty years later, on the other American coast: Bianca Jagger, Liza Minnelli and Andy Warhol (from left) in the early morning hours of January 1, 1978 at the legendary Studio 54 in New York City.
About twenty years later: On December 31, 2002, Britney Spears and Natalie Portman were the official hosts of the New Year’s Eve party at the Hudson Hotel in New York. Yes.
And if you’re wondering why Kate Beckinsale and her friend are wearing school uniforms, let’s explain that the theme of the 2004/2005 New Year’s Eve party at the Hammersmith Palais in London was ‘School Disco’…
In 1949, New Year’s Eve celebrations in London looked like this (here’s a snapshot at the Trocadero Club in Leicester Square):
Hollywood star Rita Hayworth walks discreetly into 1941, while writer Quentin Crisp is still there in 1940.
Look – this is Professor McGonagall, just in case. Yes, here is Maggie Smith and her husband Robert Stephens singing the traditional New Year’s song “Auld Lang Syne” shortly after midnight on January 1, 1973:
Meanwhile, in Germany, in the 1950s (yes, that’s how they write it): film star Karin Baal toasts us.
Okay – I have no idea what the dog mask is about, but somehow you can’t shake the feeling that Pamela Anderson had a good time at the “Gridlock New Year’s Eve Party 2009” at Paramount Studios in LA .
It can also be done in style: the Swedish film diva Anita Ekberg in the early hours of January 1, 1959 in the casino of Saint Vincent, Valle d’Aosta, Italy.
Not everyone has lavish parties. Actress Lindsay Lohan went shopping for shoes at Via Condotti in Rome on December 31, 2007.
And actress Olivia de Havilland went skiing in 1937.
But this one does celebrate: Snoop Dogg, in his 2012 video ‘New Year’s Eve’, appropriately with a pimp cup.
And the two who have made partying their profession: the Hilton sisters Nicky (l.) and Paris at the LAX Nightclub New Year’s Eve Bash on December 31, 2007 in Las Vegas. “Profession”. Ha.
Okay, but if there was a New Year’s Eve party series that we… Real If you would have liked to have been there, it would have been at the ‘Chelsea Arts Ball’, celebrated at London’s Albert Hall from 1908 to 1958.
Wherever or how you celebrate New Year’s Eve, chances are it will never be as crazy as the New Year’s Eve party that this West London artists’ club organized from 1908 to 1958. So far: after New Year’s Eve 1958, the party was banned.
Although… a New Year’s Eve party in the 1990s where “Jackass” star Steve-O showed up was probably pretty funny too.
One of the millennium parties on December 31, 2000 that was full of anticipation: here is cult actor David Carradine and his wife at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills.
Puff Daddy seemed to have a little more fun at his millennium party on the Caribbean island of St. Barthelemy:
‘If I’m good, I’m good. “But when I’m bad, I’m better” – this is how actress Mae West rang in the New Year in 1936.
“The big show for New Year’s Eve 1961/62 on NDR” – this is how they used to throw a Saturday evening box on German television: with a dancing, singing Caterina Valente!
She’s not to be missed: Mariah Carey on December 31, 2005 during “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” in Times Square in New York.
Backstage at the British TV program “Ready Steady Go” in the early hours of January 1, 1966: presenter Cathy McGowan (l.) with Scottish singer Lulu.
He was also there at the New Year’s Eve show ‘Ready Steady Go’: Mick Jagger
So we say goodbye to silent film star Buster Keaton, who makes what we’re supposed to do: New Year’s resolutions, people! Make something!