Alert – From Kris Jenner to Bruce Willis, FEMAIL looks back at the yearbook photos of some of Hollywood’s biggest stars – 50 years on from their innocent high school days

As Hollywood stars, these A-listers are among some of the most recognizable people in the world. 

But 50 years ago, as they graduated from high school as members of the class of 1973, they were just one of many faces in a sea of wide-eyed yearbook snaps taken to commemorate the milestone moment in their lives. 

While many left their respective high schools full of promise and likely with that memorable feeling of having the world at their feet, few could have known that this special group of teens would go on to earn such impressive levels of fame, wealth, and power.

In the five decades since these yearbook photos were taken, many of these stars have had their picture taken hundreds of times – on red carpets, in photo shoots, and in paparazzi shots. But back then, these black-and-white portraits that would fill the pages of their high school yearbooks were no doubt among the most important they had ever posed for.

Here, FEMAIL looks back at their illustrious careers, roller-coaster personal lives and – in some cases – bitter tragedies and scandals.

Kris Jenner: From cheerleader to ultimate momager

Back before she was known as the matriarch of the famous Kardashian-Jenner clan, the momager – who was then known as Kristen Houghton – attended Clairemont High School in San Diego, where she was a pom-pom shaking cheerleader.

After graduating, Kris was reportedly far more interested in ‘getting out in the world’ and becoming a wife and mother, rather than in going to college. She worked as a junior flight attendant for American Airlines before meeting her first husband, Robert Kardashian, and marrying him in 1978.

The matriarch of the now-famous Kardashian-Jenner brood is known for her skills as a businesswoman. 

Her lawyer husband, Robert, was widely known for his early legal representation of O.J Simpson, and the pair shared four children – Khloe, Kourtney, Kim and Rob – but divorced in 1991 after 13 years of marriage.

Kris than married ex-Olympian Bruce Jenner in the same year, and they went on to welcome two more children: Kylie and Kendall. 

She took over Bruce’s career – who has since come out as a transgender woman and is known as Caitlyn – launching her career as a motivational speaker and had a series of brand endorsements, managed by Kris.

In her 2011 memoir Kris Jenner… and All Things Kardashian, Kris revealed she had an affair during her marriage to Robert with man she named ‘Ryan,’ who turned out to be soccer player Todd Waterman.

‘He adored me, and I treated him so badly. To this day, I still cannot tell you why. Again, it was as if my body had been taken over by demons or aliens. I was really ashamed of myself,’ she wrote.

‘But I didn’t try to get Robert back,’ she continued. ‘I didn’t want to insult him like that. I had been so wrong. I had embarrassed him, humiliated him, destroyed him.’

However, the move that launched the famous family into a multimillion-dollar business and global franchise was the launch of the reality TV show, Keeping Up With The Kardashians, which Kris pitched to E! producer Ryan Seacrest in 2007, and she acted as executive producer.

She is also been credited as the mastermind behind the release of daughter Kim and Ray J’s sex tape in 2007 that helped  launch the successful Keeping Up With The Kardashians series, which ran for 20 seasons and spawned 14 spin-offs.

Kris has been dating 42-year-old Corey Gamble since 2014 after the pair met at a party. They are still dating as of October 2023.

 Kevin Costner: From high school jock to Yellowstone Rancher

The actor, producer and film director grew up in California, attending Mt. Whitney High School before graduating from Villa Park High School in Orange County.

At school, he enjoyed sports, took piano lessons, wrote poetry and sang in the First Baptist Choir.

The Yellowstone star attended California State University in Fullerton, and graduated in 1978. He met his first wife, Cindy Silva, while studying and they had three children  together – Annie, Lily, and Joe.  

Kevin, who began working in marketing, decided to pursue an acting career after meeting actor Richard Burton on a plane on the way back from his honeymoon in 1978, who encouraged him to try.

He began taking acting lessons five nights a week, while working as a marketing executive.

He went on to find international fame in popular 1980s films, The Untouchables, No Way Out and Field Of Dreams.

He formed a production company Tig Productions in 1990 with producer Jim Wilson, and they went on to release Dances With Wolves, which Kevin directed and starred in, earning him 12 Academy Award nominations. 

Kevin went on to win seven, including two for him personally.

He is also a singer in a country rock band, Kevin Costner & Modern West. They have toured as well as written songs for Kevin’s hit series Yellowstone.

Kevin and his first wife, Cindy, broke up after 16 years of marriage after an alleged affair while on the set of the science fiction-post-apocalyptic film Waterworld in 1995.

He went on to have a brief relationship with Bridget Rooney and the two have a son, Liam, together. 

In 2004, Kevin married his girlfriend of four years, model and handbag designer Christine Baumgartner.

The couple have three children – sons Cayden, and Hayes, and Grace – however it was announced in May 2023 Christine had filed for divorce, sparking a bitter feud

According to court documents obtained by TMZ at the time, Kevin said that per his prenuptial agreement with his ex-wife, had 30 days to leave the house owned by the actor after the divorce was filed. The couple settled with prenup enforced in September 2023. 

The 68-year-old actor and his 49-year-old wife of nearly 20 years had been embroiled in a months-long legal war over child support payments after Christine also asked for $248,000 a month in child support. A judge temporarily ordered Kevin to make monthly payments of $129,755 in child support for their three kids, which was later reduced to $63,209.

The divorce proceedings grew increasingly more tense after Kevin wanted Christine to pay his legal fees for challenging their prenup, asking her to pay his $99,225 in fees.

The former couple came to an ‘amicable’ settlement to end their divorce fight, with Christine had received more than $400,000 to pay the costs of the contentious courtroom battle.

Bruce Willis: Popular high schooler to Die Hard action hero

Before he was John McClane in Die Hard, Bruce attended Penns Grove High School in Carneys Point, New Jersey.

The suave actor had a busy and social school experience; he was elected president of the student council in high school and was also a member of the drama club, which he joined to help improve his stutter. He was a member of his high school TV crew and on the junior varsity baseball team, and was even voted homecoming king as a senior.

After graduating, Bruce had a number of odd jobs, including working as a security guard and private investigator.

He went on to study acting at Montclair State University, dropping out in 1977 and moving to New York City where he worked as a bartender.

Bruce’s break out role was in 1985 after being cast as David Addison in the hit TV show Moonlighting, and three years later, he became known to a wider audience s a major action star for his role as John McClane in the first of several Die Hard films.

Bruce met Demi Moore in August 1987, as Moonlighting was still in full swing. 

A  whirlwind romance quickly followed, with the two marrying that same year and Demi falling pregnant within four months. They went on to have three children together and announced their separation in 1998, and divorced in 2000.

However, despite being married for more than a decade, Demi says their relationship was far from a Hollywood movie.

In her memoir Inside Out, published in 2019, she claimed that her then-husband ‘wanted to do whatever the f*** he wanted to do’ and insisted she stayed home with the kids instead of having a career of her own. 

Many speculated that their separation was fueled by some comments made to Playboy in 1996.  According the Mirror, Bruce claimed: ‘No woman is going to satisfy a man’s natural impulse to procreate, procreate, procreate.’

The actor continued: ‘The impulse doesn’t go away because you have three or 10 or a hundred kids.’

‘We’re just donkeys walking up to the trough for food and wanting to f**k everything everything we see because of this unconscious agenda.’

However, Demi and Bruce managed to maintain a good friendship while co-parenting their three children after their divorce.

Bruce found love again a few years later, and married model Emma Heming in 2009, going on to have two children together.

The action star retired from acting in March 2022 after experiencing a disorder called aphasia, when a person struggles with speaking, understanding, reading or writing.

Before his condition was known, the action star allegedly misfired guns during movie takes and needed someone to read his lines to him through a earpiece as his symptoms worsened, according to some film crews he worked with.

He also reportedly was struggling on set with cognitive issues on the sets of his films for years – and even needed an earpiece to feed him lines.

His family announced had been sadly been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia in February 2023, and sometimes share updates on his condition to social media.

Billy Bob Thornton: High school graduate to Hollywood Walk of Fame

He had a high-profile stint as Mr. Angelina Jolie and famously carried her blood in a necklace that around his neck, but before Hollywood called Billy Bob Thornton, he was a baseball-playing graduate of Malvern High School in Arkansas.

The actor and producer moved to Hollywood in the mid-1980s, spending over 10 years trying to break into the industry before earning his breakout role in 1992, achieving his first career milestone with the release of One False Move, which he co-wrote and starred in.

Billy Bob wrote, directed and starred in the career-making independent drama, Sling Blade, in 1996, which propelled him into international fame, and won him an Oscar for Best Screenplay and another nomination for Best Actor.

Billy Bob is also a musician, having released four solo albums and is the lead vocalist and drummer for The Boxmasters, a country rock/rockabilly band. 

The actor received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2004.

Billy Bob was been married six times and has four children from his marriages. 

He was married to Melissa Lee Gatlin from 1978 to 1980, with the couple welcoming a child, Amanda, during that time. 

He tied the knot to Toni Lawrence in 1986, with the couple separating in 1980, before he found love with Cynda Williams, who he stayed with from 1990 to 1992.

Then he and Pietra Dawn Cherniak married in 1993 and divorced in 1997. They welcomed two children: William and Harry.

His most notable marriage was to Angeline Jolie, whom he wed in 2000, after meeting in 1999 while Billy Bob was in a relationship with actress Laura Dern. However, they split in 2002.

The couple infamously wore vials of each other’s blood while they were married, explaining in a 2014 interview with THR that it was Angelina’s idea.

‘She thought it would be interesting and romantic if we took a little razor blade and sliced our fingers, smeared a little blood on these lockets, and you wear it around your neck just like you wear your son or daughter’s baby hair in one,’ he said.

However, he also claimed that the media made it out to be more than it was, stating: ‘From that we were wearing quart jars of blood around our necks.’

Billy Bob explained the blood necklaces further while speaking with People in 2018.

‘The necklaces were a very simple thing, “Hey let’s poke our fingers with a pen and smear a little blood on there and when we’re away from each other we’ll wear the necklace,”‘ he said.

‘It was that easy. But by the time it came out in the press it sounded like we were wearing a bucket of blood around our necks,’ he added.

Upon reflecting on their marriage, the actor and singer had nothing but positive things to say.

‘I remember our time together as really being great,’ he said on the HFPA in Conversation podcast. ‘We just had different lifestyles. Hers is a global lifestyle and mine is an agoraphobic lifestyle.

‘So… that’s the only reason we’re probably not still together, maybe, because of a different path in life we wanted to take.’

He’s currently married to actress Connie Angland, whom he married in 2014 after meeting 12 years earlier. They welcomed his youngest daughter, Bella, in 2004.

Kelsey Grammer: Broadway star to Dr Frasier Crane

He’s famous for his deep smooth voice and comedic roles. But before he famously graced the silver screens as the pompous psychiatrist Dr Frasier Crane, Kelsey – known then as Allen Kelsey Grammer – was a student at Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

He recalled catching the acting bug in seventh grade, telling Katie Couric in 2004 he was reading Shakespeare when he realized what he wanted to do with his life.

‘It was the first assignment of the play Julius Caesar in my seventh grade class,’ he said. ‘That started me thinking. That got me going. That really twigged my brain.’

After graduating high school, Kelsey attended Julliard after he was awarded a scholarship. However he stopped attending classes after his younger sister, Karen, was brutally raped and murdered in 1975, and he was eventually expelled.

Kelsey had a three-year internship with the Globe Theater in San Diego in the late 1970s, making his Broadway debut in 1981 as Lennox in Macbeth.

However, his breakout role was when he landed a role in Cheers in 1984, playing Dr Frasier Crane – a role he went on to play for 20 years.

He won a number of awards for his acting on Frasier, winning outstanding lead actor in a series in 1994, 1995, and 1998. He also won for best actor in a television series (musical or comedy) in 1995 and 2000.

Kesley has been open about his history of substance abuse, and was charged with drunk driving and cocaine possession in 1988, and was sentenced to 30 days in jail.

In 1995, the beloved actor was accused of sleeping with his child’s underage babysitter. The actor was not indicted by a grand jury, with it stating: ‘The young woman’s delay of more than a year in pressing charges against Mr. Grammer made it difficult to support her claim.’

Kelsey released a statement shortly afterwards, saying: ‘I have said from the outset that there was no basis for the allegations.’

Kesley has been married four times, and has seven children and one grandchild. 

He was married to Leigh-Anne Csuhany from 1992 to 1993, Doreen Alderman from 1982 to 1990, Camille Grammer-Meyer from 1997 to 2011, and married Kayte Walsh in 2011.

Kelsey reprised this role as Frasier Crane in the 2023 reboot of Frasier on the Paramount+ streaming service.

Jerry Hall: Supermodel who dated Rockstar’s and billionaire’s

She’s a world-famous actress and model, and was once married to the biggest rock star and a media tycoon.

But before she took the world by a storm, Jerry was a graduate of North Mesquite High School in Mesquite, Texas.

Jerry graduated high school at 16, and was a keen partaker in school activities, including archery, tennis and gymnastics. After leaving school, she moved to Paris to pursue a modeling career, landing high-profile jobs with brands such as Yves Saint Laurent and Thierry Mugler.

In 1975, Hall booked a modeling job for the album cover of British band Roxy Music, where she met the band’s front man, Bryan Ferry, and the two began dating and later got engaged in 1976.

The statuesque model went on to meet her longtime partner, Mick Jagger, in 1976, while she was engaged to Brian and while Mick was married to his then-wife, Bianca.

She broke up with Brian the next year, and started dating Mick while he was still married, going public when his divorce was finalized in 1978.

The couple briefly separated in 1982, but rekindled their relationship in 1983, welcoming four children together and eventually tying the knot in 1990. 

Their relationship was marred with scandal, and they separated in 1999 after Mick’s extramarital affairs – and illegitimate child – were brought to light.

However, as they were married in Indonesia, a high court judge in the UK declared that the ceremony was not valid under British or Indonesian law and he therefore declared the marriage null and void.

The supermodel met News Corp media mogul Rupert Murdoch in 2015, and the pair announced their engagement in 2016. However, they divorced in 2022, citing irreconcilable differences.

A friend of the model told AlertContent at the time that Jerry was left ‘heartbroken’ by the abrupt end of her marriage to the news magnate – and that Rupert had broken up with her via email. 

The friend said she was waiting in the UK for her then-husband to join her when he sent an email which told her that the marriage was over. The alleged message added that from here on she should communicate with him only via his lawyers. 

Jermaine Jackson: Jackson Five member

While most kids were figuring out what they want to do after high school, Jermaine Jackson was already a member of the famous Jackson 5. Although the musician graduated from Birmingham High School in Los Angeles, California, in 1973. 

The Jackson 5 become a worldwide sensation in 1969 with the release of their first Motown album, Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5.

Their singles I Want You Back and Who’s Loving You went on to sell two million copies in just six weeks.

Jermaine adamantly defended his brother, Michael, during his 2005 trial after being accused of child molestation in his Neverland home, maintaining there was ‘no truth’ to the allegations. The popstar was acquitted of the charges.

Jermaine has long had a reputation for being the diva of the Jacksons, having made some controversial moves over the years. Famously, he started a relationship and later married Alejandra Oaziaza, who was the partner of the youngest Jackson brother Randy. 

The pair went on to marry in 1995, but separated in 2005. They share two children, Jaafar Jermiah Jackson and Jermajesty Jermaine Jackson.

Jermaine has been married and divorced three times and has seven children. He was first married straight out of high school to his first wife, Hazel Gordy, the daughter of Motown founder Berry Gordy. 

The pair divorced in 1988 and share three children, Jermaine La Jaune “Jay” Jackson Jr., Autumn Joi Jackson and Jaimy Jermaine Jackson.

He was in a relationship with Margaret Maldonado from 1986 until 1993, and they share two sons, Jeremy Maldonado Jackson and Jourdynn Michael Jackson.

He met Halima Rashid in 2004 and they married in later that year. However, they divorced in 2016, citing irreconcilable differences.

Willem Dafoe: Expelled student to award-winning film star

Award-winning actor and Wisconsin native Willem Dafoe attended Appleton East High School, where his love of drama started early.

In a 2018 appearance on the Late Night with Stephen Colbert, he recalled a school project he undertook in high school, that involved interviewing three different pupils in the student body, which ultimately resulted in him being kicked out of school.

However, the student body was a little more colorful than he maybe anticipated, with Willem telling the talk show host: ‘One considered himself a Satanist; one considered himself a nudist; and one was interested in legalizing pot.’

He explained he interviewed the nudist on the toilet; the Satanist brought out his pornography collection; and the guy that was interested in legalizing pot started talking about some of the people he sold it to, with the footage ultimately resulting in his expulsion.

He then took classes at Lawrence University to meet the requirements to graduate, and went on to attend the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) where he took drama.

One of eight children to a father doctor and nurse mother, Willem revealed in a 2018 interview with Esquire that he was the only one his parents didn’t put through school because he didn’t go into the medical field. 

‘They put all my brothers and sisters through undergraduate and graduate school. Me, nothing, because they thought I was goofing around, but I was okay with that,’ he said. 

After moving to New York in 1976, Willem’s big break came in 1985 when he was cast in To Live And Die In L.A. He then went on to star in Platoon in 1986, which earned him his first Academy Award nomination, and played Christ in Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation Of Christ.

Other notable films include American Psycho in 2000, his role as the Green Goblin in the Spiderman trilogy from 2002 to 2007, and John Wick in 2014.

Willem was in a relationship his Wooster Group theater director Elizabeth LeCompte, whom he met in 1977, when he first moved to New York. They broke up in 2004 after 27 years together, and share one son, Jack.

The now 68-year-old met his now-wife Giada Colagrande, 48, at the premiere of one of her films in 2004, and they married a year later. 

Bill Gates: Harvard University drop out to Microsoft founder

Before Microsoft, Bill Gates was excelling academically in high school. The businessman was a National Merit Scholar before graduating from Lakeside School in Seattle, Washington, in 1973.

He had a keen interest in software engineering from an early age, writing his first program at age 13.  He was a part of a group of programmers who computerized their school’s payroll system and founded Traf-O-Data, a company monitored traffic patterns in the region.

After graduating, Bill went on to study at Harvard University, but dropped out in his junior year and formed Microsoft with his high school friend Paul Allen in 1975.

Bill met his first wife, Melinda French, after she started as a product manager at Microsoft, asking her out on a date. 

The pair got engaged after six years of dating in 1993, and welcomed their first daughter, Jennifer Katharine, in 1996. They went on to have their son, Rory, in 1999 and their youngest child, Phoebe, in 2002.

Their relationship was far from perfect, with allegations of affairs throughout their marriage.

The Wall Street Journal reported the Microsoft founder’s had a fling with Russian bridge player Mila Antonova in 2010, which followed an ‘inappropriate’ affair with a staffer in 2000 on top of claims he repeatedly hit on women at the company. 

Bill had stepped down as CEO in 2000 but remained a member of the board. He quit the board suddenly in 2020 while the investigation into the affair, which was launched in 2019, was still underway. 

His spokeswoman confirmed the affair but said his departure from the board wasn’t linked to it. 

The former CEO was also questioned over his relationship with sex offender Jeffery Epstein, having meetings with each other after Epstein – who killed himself in 2019 – had already spent a year in prison for soliciting child prostitution.

After their first meeting, Gates sent an email to colleagues saying of Epstein: ‘His lifestyle is very different and kind of intriguing although it would not work for me.’

Melinda had reportedly warned her the-husband against having any further contact with the pedophile, and was ‘furious’ at their relationship, which according to Gates begun in the hope the wealthy financier would help him raise money for his global health initiatives.

Bill and Melinda finalized their divorce in August 2021, just three months after they announced they were splitting. The ex-couple, who were married for 27 years, did not have a prenup and instead divided their assets based on a separation contract with undisclosed terms. 

The settlement with Gates, whose net worth was then estimated at more than $130 billion, could well have left Melinda with more than $65 billion. 

The former couple is also known for their philanthropic work, launching the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000.

He is now dating former tech executive Paula Hurd and the couple were said to be ‘inseparable.’

Bill Nye: Boeing engineer to TV science expert

Before he was a science guy, Bill Nye was a wannabe-space guy. The now-famous science educator graduated from Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., but had high hopes he would be heading out of this world and into space.

He then went on to graduate with a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering in 1977 from Cornell University. He then went on to work as an engineer for Boeing Cooperation, and applied – and was rejected – from NASA’s astronaut training program four times.

Taking his career in a more land-bound direction, Bill started doing comedy while working at Boeing, even winning a Steve Martin lookalike contest in 1978. He quit his job as an engineer in 1986 to focus on his blossoming comedy career.

Bill developed the idea for his now-famous TV show, Bill Nye The Science Guy, in 1993, which ran until 1998.

Over its five years on air, the show received 23 Emmy nominations and won 19 total, with Nye himself winning seven for Outstanding Writing in a Children’s Series, Outstanding Performer in a Children’s Series, and Outstanding Children’s Series.

In 2019, he reprised his iconic character in a cameo in an episode of HBO’s Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, where he surprised audiences with a profanity-laden tirade about the disastrous effects of climate change.

‘By the end of this century, if emissions keep rising, the average temperature on Earth could go up another four to eight degrees. What I’m saying is the planet’s on f***ing fire,’ the TV personality said at the time, as he set fire to a wooden globe sitting on a disk in front of him. 

‘Grow the f*** up. You’re not children anymore. I didn’t mind explaining photosynthesis to you when you were 12. But you’re adults now, and this is an actual crisis, got it? Safety glasses off, motherf***ers,’ he said. 

Bill married musician Blair Tindall in 2006, but they divorced six weeks later after it was discovered that the union was invalid, and the marriage was annulled.

In 2007, Bill filed for a restraining order claiming that Blair’s behavior was a cause of concern following the end of their marriage. 

He married journalist and author Liza Mundy in 2022. He has no children.

Peter Gallagher: Broadway star to beloved TV dad

Long before he was playing a parent to high school students on The O.C., Peter Gallagher was working hard to graduate from Byram Hills High School in Armonk, New York.

According to Peter, he was far from a Hollywood heartthrob in high school, recalling having ‘fat lips, glasses and big eyebrows’ in an interview with InStyle. 

After graduating from Tufts University, where he keenly participated in theater, and went on to study at William Esper Studio in New York.

Gallagher made his Broadway debut 1984, performing in The Real Thing with Glenn Close. He’s since gone on to appear in 10 Broadway shows, including five musicals and five plays. 

Although one of his most famous roles was Sandy Cohen on The O.C.,  Peter was first recognized for his role in the 1989 film Sex, Lies, and Videotape.

He’s also known for his role as Jonathan Reeves in Center Stage in 2000, and more recently in the dramedy Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, and Grace and Frankie.

Peter married his wife, Paula Harwood, in 1983 and the they share two children, James and Katheryn.