Where Are They Now? The Iconic Woodstock Couple

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By: Allison Ford (View Profile)

In 1969, Joan Bryant was a twenty-two-year-old college student with a husband and two children, but a photo of her at Woodstock would be remembered as one of the festival’s—and the decade’s—most enduring images.

Joan traveled with a friend from her home in Bloomington, Indiana to New York’s Catskill Mountains, and although her friend had a ticket, Joan decided to risk going without one. Because it was the first major rock festival, “I knew it was going to be historic,” she says. When they arrived, having a ticket ended up being irrelevant, as the drowsy farm was flooded with half a million people—no ticket-takers in sight.

Even between the scheduled acts, music abounded. “There were people jamming and playing instruments in the crowd,” Joan says. During one of these impromptu sessions, she bumped into a very distinctive friend, a musician named Fantuzzi. “He stood out on the street,” she says, “because he only wore a loincloth.” When they saw each other, they both began dancing, and the moment was captured by rock photographer Jim Marshall. His photo of the pair was featured in a 1969 issue of Life Magazine.

Afterward, Joan returned to her family and her self-described “hippie” lifestyle, until 1994, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the legendary festival. “A friend said to me, ‘Have you seen Newsweek? Your picture is on it!’” Sure enough, the iconic picture was on the cover, and Joan ended up fielding interview requests from people all over the world who wanted to know the story of the exuberant girl in the picture. Woodstock’s fortieth anniversary has brought the photo back into the spotlight yet again.

Joan no longer considers herself a true hippie, but she still tries to live out some of the ideals of the time. “I try to serve people, be compassionate and loving,” she says, “because those are characteristics true to that spirit.” Now a resident of Southern California, she’s run her own business for twenty-six years, first in Malibu and now in Newbury Park. Her boutique, Indiana Joan’s, sells women’s clothing, accessories, and gifts, some of which she makes herself by hand. Her favorite performance at Woodstock was Jefferson Airplane, and Joan says, “Years later, [lead singer] Grace Slick became my customer. How cool is that?”

As for Fantuzzi, she says, “He’s still the same, although he probably wears more clothes now.” The most recent photo of them was taken in 1994 at his birthday party in Los Angeles. The times, though, have definitely changed, and since then, Joan says they’ve relied on a decidedly more modern way to rekindle their friendship. “Recently, I’ve reconnected with him on Facebook.”