Standards of beauty change dramatically from one era to the next. You could be thought the very pinnacle of beauty in the 1930s but be subject to endless cruel gossip and ridicule in the 2010s. Here are five outstanding women who wouldn’t even get a call back to star in a romantic comedy today, but who were showstoppers in their time. What a loss had these women never been stars! Really, people, just think about it.

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5. Betty Grable: She was the #1 pinup girl of World War II, and it was this poster that drove millions of GI’s absolutely nuts. That was the popular poster. But today, I think the image would conjure no more than a shrug and “meh.”

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4. Bette Davis: She was definitely awesome, and a great actress, but she was not, even in her time, conventionally beautiful. It’s a sure thing that she’d be asked to get a nose job, but perhaps her quirky beauty and forceful personality would carry her through. Her eyes were so enchanting that they inspired the 80s mega-hit song “Bette Davis Eyes” by Kim Carnes.

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3. Ingrid Bergman: When she first came to Hollywood in order to remake in English a film she’d originally made in Swedish, she was referred to by some as the “Swedish Cow” and considered to be large, ungainly, and masculine. She quickly turned those views around based on her acting skills and charisma, though.

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2. Lillian Russell: A real star and major sex symbol of her day, she would be considered too fat to be on TV nowadays.

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1. Mae West: Simply put, she is awesome. There’s no one like her, and there’s no end to the clever quotes she’s known for, from “I used to be Snow White, but I drifted,” to “she’s the kind of girl who climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong.” But she’s be seen today as too heavy, with features not delicate enough, for stardom.