47 Vintage Celebrity Selfies Before Smartphones

Taking a selfie nowadays is the same as having your breakfast for most of us – no day goes without one. Eating a fancy dinner? Time for a selfie! Watching a game at the stadium? Snap away! Chilling at the beach? Perfect! And with our modern technologies, it has never been easier to document your daily life. But how has it all begun? Surely you cannot make a nice selfie picture without a high-tech smartphone, right? Well, let us take you on a history trip of the Selfie, and we’ll show you how Hollywood stars used to do it way before our time.

You might be amazed in learning that probably the first-ever selfie dates way back to 1839 – that’s not even the 20th century! And though this first vintage photo of oneself has probably requested sitting still in front of the camera for at least 15 minutes, it was well worth the patience. With better technologies and smaller photo cameras, people favorited bathroom selfies more until someone came with the ingenious idea of holding the camera in front of your face. And that’s precisely how the modern selfie was born.

Now, scroll down below for the visual part of this history lesson. You’ll be delighted to see such vintage photography gems of old Hollywood stars like Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra snapping their mirror selfies and such beloved recent-times culture icons as Stanley Kubrick or Kurt Cobain documenting theirs. Selfies aren’t so bad, after all!

#1 Rowan Atkinson, 1987

#2 Marilyn Monroe, 1962

#3 Jeff Bridges & Sam Elliott, 1997

#4 Self-Portrait By Photographer Joseph Byron, 1909

#5 Frank Sinatra, 1930s

Image source: Sinatra Family Archive

#6 Stanley Kubrick On The Set Of “The Shining” With His Daughter. Apparently, Jack Nicholson Thought Kubrick Was Taking A Photo Of Him (1980s)

#7 Linda, Paul And Mary McCartney, 1969

#8 John Lennon, 1967

#9 Neil Armstrong, 1969

#10 Photojournalist Terry Fincher With A Fish-Eye Lens Strapped To His Foot, 1966

#11 Andy Warhol, 1979

#12 Madonna, 1982

#13 Paul McCartney, 1959

#14 Michael Jackson, 1996

#15 Stevie Nicks, 1970’s-80’s

#16 Ilse Bing, 1931

#17 George Harrison, 1966

#18 Robert Cornelius In The First Daguerreotype Taken In North America. It Is Believed To Be The First Photographic Self-Portrait, 1839

#19 US President John F. Kennedy And Jacqueline Kennedy, 1954

Image source: John McInnis Auctioneers

#20 Princess Anastasia (Daughter Of Russia’s Last Emperor), 1914

#21 Buzz Aldrin, Gemini XII Mission, 1966

#22 Stanley Kubrick, 1949

#23 George Harrison, 1966

#24 Sammy Davis Jr., 1950

#25 Colin Powell, 1954

Image source: General Colin L. Powell

#26 Courtney Love And Kurt Cobain, 1992

#27 Photographer Florence Vandamm, 1947

#28 Bill Nye The Science Guy, 1999

#29 Hunter S. Thompson, 1960

#30 Richard Avedon And Sophia Loren, 1960s

#31 Geraldine Fitzgerald, 1940s

#32 Belgian Artist Henri Evenepoel, 1898

#33 George Harrison, 1966

#34 Gordon Parks, 1948

Image source: Time & Life Pictures

#35 Dennis Hopper, 1965

#36 George Harrison, 1966

#37 John Chaloner Woods, 1938

#38 Ringo Starr, 1960

#39 Ed Feingersh Self-Portrait With Marilyn Monroe, 1955

#40 Madonna, 80s

#41 Allen Ginsburg, 1985

#42 Actor Van Johnson, 1940s

#43 Maj. David G. Simons, 1957

Image source: Time & Life Pictures

#44 Tony Ray-Jones At The Seaside In 1965

#45 Actress Joyce Reynolds, 1940s

#46 Allen Ginsberg, 1985

#47 Ronald Reagan & Lester Wisbrod, 1980s