Who were the hottest teen stars of the 80s? These teen idols got the most votes in 1984

You probably had the posters of these hottest teen stars of the 80s

If you were a teen in 1984, you probably didn’t need a poll to tell you who the hottest teen stars of the 80s were — their faces were already on your bedroom walls. But Teen Beat made it official that year with their first-ever Teen Star Awards, where readers mailed in their votes for the biggest names in movies, TV, music and more. And we do mean mailed — this was the kind of ballot that required an envelope and a stamp.

Teen Beat got so many responses they said the ballots came in by the bagful. And when they finally tallied it all up, Matt Dillon landed at the top of the pile. He edged out Tom Cruise and C. Thomas Howell in the Fave Male Movie Star category, with all three pulling almost the same amount of votes. John Travolta, Rob Lowe and Sly Stallone also made strong showings, but 1984 was clearly Matt Dillon’s moment.

On the female side, Kristy McNichol was the runaway favorite. She pulled nearly 20% of the vote for Fave Female Movie Star, way ahead of second-place Diane Lane and third-place Brooke Shields. Goldie Hawn, Jennifer Beals and Carrie Fisher also picked up plenty of support, but Kristy had the fans locked in.

What’s fun about looking back at this list is how it captures a specific moment in time — not necessarily the biggest box office names or critical favorites, but the ones who connected with teens on a poster-and-puffy-pen level. These were the stars people wrote letters to, covered school folders with, and argued about during sleepovers.

Below, we’ve reprinted the official results from Teen Beat’s 1984 Teen Star Awards — a time capsule of what teen stardom looked like before social media, streaming, or even DVDs. It’s pure ‘80s.

Your votes have been counted!  Teen Beat’s 1st Annual Teen Star Awards

In the February 1984 edition of Teen Beat, we printed our 1st Annual Teen Star Awards ballot asking our readers to vote for their favorite movie stars, TV stars, soap stars, singers, rock groups, sex symbols, comedy stars, child stars, and animal or fantasy stars.

And your response to this exciting mail-in poll was totally awesome! We received so many mailbags full of ballots we thought we’d never get them all sorted and counted! But count them all we did, and the results are printed here.

Congratulations to all the winners of Teen Beat’s 1st Annual Teen Star Awards!

And the winners are…

Matt Dillon – Fave Male Movie Star

First Place: Matt Dillon with 16.8% of the vote

Second Place: Tom Cruise with 16.6% of the vote

Third Place: Tom Howell with 16.1% of the vote

As you can see, the vote for Fave Male Movie Star was very close. It was almost a three-way tie between Dillon, Cruise and Howell, but Matt finally came out on top! Other stars with strong showings were John Travolta, Rob Lowe and Sly Stallone.

Kristy McNichol – Fave Female Movie Star

First Place: Kristy McNichol with 19.9% of the vote

Second Place: Diane Lane with 16.7% of the vote

Third Place: Brooke Shields with 10.0% of the vote

Kristy was the clear frontrunner for the title of Fave Female Movie Star, although Diane had many supporters. After Brooke, Goldie Hawn, Jennifer Beals and Carrie Fisher came on strong.