Ali MacGraw

American actress Ali MacGraw (1939) began her career as an assistant photographer for Harper's Bazaar magazine and then worked as a model. She became known with the film Goodbye Columbus (1969) and became famous worldwide with her lead role in Love Story (1970), for which she received an Oscar nomination. She married producer Robert Evans in 1969 but divorced him in 1972. The following year, she married Steve McQueen, her co-star in The Getaway (1972). MacGraw also appeared in such films as Convoy (1978) and TV series as Dynasty (1984).


Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 196.

A new type of fresh college girl

Elizabeth Alice MacGraw was born in 1939 in Pound Ridge, New York. Her parents were Frances Klein MacGraw and Richard MacGraw. Her father owned a gas station chain, and her mother was an artist. She had a younger brother, Richard MacGraw Jr., also an artist.

Ali was educated at Wellesley College, where she studied art history and literature. In 1957, she was voted the most beautiful hotel waitress of the season in Atlantic City, where she worked during her college years. In 1960, she married Robin Martin Hoen. The couple divorced two years later. She began her career as an assistant for photographer Melvin Sokolsky, who worked for fashion magazines such as Harper's Bazaar, and she also worked as a stylist. She later worked before the camera as a model.

She entered film in 1968. In her very first film, The Fastest Way to Heaven (David Lowell Rich, 1968), she played a small role alongside Kirk Douglas. The film, however, was a flop. She gained fame with her first leading role in the comedy Goodbye Columbus (Larry Peerce, 1969), starring Richard Benjamin. She won a Golden Globe for Best Young Actress.

With her straight, long black hair and her barely made-up, natural-looking face, Ali MacGraw was considered a new type of 'fresh college girl' in the USA in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1969, she married Paramount studio executive and film producer Robert Evans, who built MacGraw into a star with the melodrama Love Story (Arthur Hiller, 1970). In it, she played a college student who falls in love with a fellow student (Ryan O'Neal) and ultimately dies of a blood disease. Love Story captured the zeitgeist, and Ali received an Oscar nomination. The film was wildly successful and became one of the first blockbusters, grossing more than 100 million dollars.

A few years later, she fell in love with Steve McQueen, the co-star of her next film, The Getaway (Sam Peckinpah, 1972). She divorced Evans in 1972 and married McQueen in 1973. With Robert Evans, she had a son, Josh Evans. Evans was developing several high-profile projects for her when she filed for divorce. The roles she walked away from were Daisy in The Great Gatsby (1974) and Evelyn in Chinatown (1974).


Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 196. Ali McGraw and Ryan O'Neal in Love Story (Arthur Hiller, 1970).


Belgian postcard by Raider Bounty / Joepie. Ali McGraw and Ryan O'Neal in Love Story (Arthur Hiller, 1970).

A surprisingly modest lifestyle in Santa Fe

Ali MacGraw's marriage to Steve McQueen also ended in divorce in 1978. MacGraw returned to the screen in Convoy (Sam Peckinpah, 1978), an action film among truckers with Kris Kristofferson. For her role, she had her famous long straight hair cut short and tightly permed.

She later confessed that she always felt uncomfortable in front of the camera. She arrived on the set of Convoy (1978) one day too high on cocaine and tequila to perform. The incident prompted her to quit drugs. She appeared in more but less successful films, such as the Sports drama Players (Anthony Harvey, 1979) with Dean Paul Martin and Maximilian Schell, and the romantic comedy Just Tell Me What You Want (Sidney Lumet, 1980).

McGraw turned to television and acted in the miniseries China Rose (Robert Day, 1983), starring George C. Scott, and The Winds of War (Dan Curtis, 1983) with Robert Mitchum. In 1984, she joined the cast of Dynasty as Lady Ashley Mitchell and appeared in 14 episodes, ending in the fifth season.

She made her stage debut on Broadway in the play 'Festen'. She also wrote about her problems with alcohol and men in her autobiography 'Moving Pictures' (1991). Her final film was Glam (1997), directed by her son, Josh Evans. The film, intended as a satire of the Hollywood establishment, was panned by critics.

Fifty years after her smash hit Love Story, Ali MacGraw received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It happened in a double ceremony with Ryan O'Neal at 7057 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California, in 2021. Since 1994, the former star has led a surprisingly modest lifestyle in Santa Fe in New Mexico. She is the grandmother of Jackson Evans.


French postcard by La Roue Tourne, Paris.


Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 287.

Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch) and IMDb.