If you saw a naked woman on a red carpet in the 1970s, you could almost guarantee it was Edy Williams. She caused several award show scandals in her heyday, flashing her rack and wearing the skimpiest possible outfits at any opportunity.

Sadly, though, Williams’ nude hijinks are a thing of the past — and the pearl-clutching organizers of Cannes Film Festival seem determined to avoid any replicas. In an updated dress code, they wrote, “For decency reasons, nudity is prohibited on the red carpet, as well as any other area of the festival.” As a final nail in the coffin of glitzy, campy fun, they added that “voluminous outfits, in particular those with a large train, that hinder the proper flow of traffic and guests and complicate seating in the theater, are not permitted.”

Fashion (and the red carpet) is obviously no stranger to so-called “naked dresses,” but Williams tended to go a step further. The Utah-born model had a string of minor TV appearances in the 1960s, but her career heated up when she started embracing her sexiness on-screen. In particular, Williams stripped down for Beyond the Valley of the Dolls in 1970, directed by her soon-to-be-husband Russ Meyer, whose penchant for women with big tits earned him a cult following in the sexploitation genre.

These gleefully tongue-in-cheek movies — like Supervixens and Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! — featured hot women on killing sprees, with a sprinkling of gratuitous nudity. Williams quickly became a cult hero, an ascent that was accelerated when she posed for Playboy in 1973.

The ‘60s and ‘70s in particular were a time of sexual liberation, with Hollywood censorship codes recently written off and hardcore movies like Deep Throat making their way into mainstream theaters. Despite the box-office success of what was basically porn, award show red carpets were relatively tame — until, that is, Williams came along. Her 1975 divorce from Meyer did not cause her to cover up, and in the late ‘70s, she graced several red carpets with her tits proudly exposed.

Williams’ outfits were a master class in wearing clothes, but not really. In 1974, her black, see-through babydoll negligée featured a cut-out bra, which she happily revealed from under a white fur coat. In 1983, she debuted a floor-length body-con number that covered everything but, of course, her tits. There are even photos of her dancing around butt-naked at the Cannes Film Festival, performing impromptu live strip shows in white cowboy boots. She didn’t just wreak havoc at Cannes, either. Williams’ Oscars outfits are legendary: There was the skimpy leopard-print bikini; the very revealing showgirl-like beaded dress; and in 1995, the bedazzled mesh of her black dress did nothing to cover her nipples, despite a pretty game attempt.

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Starring in porn led to a few controversies — talk show hosts loved to berate her for this choice — but Williams continued to star in adult films and kept on paving the way for today’s stars to flash their flesh at a swarm of paparazzi.

If the trend of tits on the red carpet dies for good, let it be known that Edy Williams was a risqué pioneer, a sexploitation starlet whose laissez-faire attitude toward nudity will go down in history.

Header and thumbnail images by Alan Light.