Ali MacGraw became a Hollywood superstar overnight. But just as quickly as she rose to fame, she disappeared from show business altogether.
Today, the 84-year-old actress has settled down in a remote and tiny town, and she’s aging gracefully with her grey hair.
Ali MacGraw
Ali MacGraw – born Elizabeth Alice MacGraw – was born on April 1, 1939, in Pound Ridge, New York, USA. Her mother, Frances, was an artist and worked at a school in Paris, later settling in Greenwich Village. She married Richard MacGraw, who was also an artist. In 1939, Ali was born.
Ali’s father Richard supposedly had issues from his own childhood which made him a little bit different from others.
He had survived a terrible childhood in an orphanage, running away at the age of 16 to go to sea. He would later study at an art school in Munich, Germany.
“Daddy was frightened and really, really angry. He never forgave his real parents for giving him up,” Ali explained, saying said her father’s adult life was spent “suppressing the rage that covered all his hurt.”
Ali MacGraw – childhood
Money was short for their family, too. Frances and Richard, together with Ali and her brother, Richard Jr, had to move into a house on a Pound Ridge wilderness preserve which they shared with an elderly couple.
“There were no doors; we shared the kitchen and bathroom with them,” Ali said. “It was utter lack of privacy. It was horrible.”
Mom Francis worked with several commercial-art assignments and supported the family. At the same time, Richard had a hard time selling his paintings, and as a result became very frustrated. Ali’s brother Richard became a victim for his anger at home.
“On good days he was great, but on bad days he was horrendous,” she recalled. “Daddy would beat my brother up, badly. I was witness to it, and it was terrible.”
Ali was the daughter of artists, and she knew that she, too, wanted to go into a creative line of work as she got older. She earned a scholarship at the prep school Rosemary Hall, and in 1956, she moved to study at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.
By the age of 22, Ali MacGraw moved to New York and got her first job as an assistant editor at Harper’s Bazaar, working with photographers as an assistant.
Fashion work in New York
Fashion editor Diana Vreeland hired Ali as, what she recalls as, a “flunkie”. Ever seen the film The Devil Wears Prada? Well, it was pretty much that.
“It was ‘Girl! Get me a pencil!’,” MacGraw recalled.
The future Hollywood celebrity worked her job as an assistant for several months. Then, about six months in, fashion photographer Melvin Sokolsky noticed her beautiful looks, and Ali MacGraw was hired as a stylist,and given a better salary. She’d end up staying in that position for six years.
“I don’t know where she got this work ethic, but Ali would come in at eight a.m., and many times I’d come back at one in the morning and she would still be doing things for the next day,” Ruth Ansel, a former art director of Vanity Fair and Harper’s Bazaar recalls.
Ali was great as a stylist. But soon, she was asked to work in front of the cameras as a model. It didn’t take long before she was on magazine covers all over the world, even appearing in television commercials. For thing led to another, and Ali tumbled headfirst into the profession of acting.
She had been sketched nude by Salvador Dali a couple of years earlier. But when the surrealist artist started sucking her toes, MacGraw decided that she’d rather be an actress than a model.
Ali MacGraw – films
Ali went straight from an unknown stylist and into the world of cinema, and boy, did she do it with a bang.
She was untutored in the art of film, which gave her acting another dimension. Her natural beauty was stunning, and the audience loved her.
Following a small role in A Lovely Way to Die (1968), she was asked to star in the 1969 film Goodbye, Columbus. It turned out to be a great call, with MacGraw receiving a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer – Female. The following year, she got her big international breakthrough with a role that would pretty much sum up her career.
Ali MacGraw had received a script from her agent. She’d read it and wept twice because of how much she loved it. She decided she really wanted a part in it, and got herself a meeting with the film’s producer Robert Evans – who at the time was Paramount Picture’s head of production – at the Beverly Hills Hotel’s Polo Lounge. Not only did Evans think she was perfect for the part in the movie Love Story, he absolutely fell in love with her.
MacGraw – playing the role of Jenny – acted alongside Ryan O’Neal in the movie Love Story. The American romantic drama film, in which Ali played a working-class college student, became a smash hit.
Love Story hit the cinemas in 1970, and wow did the audience cherish it. It became the No. 1 film in the United States, and at the time, it was the sixth highest grossing movie in history in the US and Canada.
Award-winning actress
MacGraw earned an Academy Award nomination for her role, and the film itself earned her another win and five Academy Award Nominations. She also won herself a second Golden Globe as Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama.
Film producer Robert Evans not only loved her on screen, he had fallen in love with her in real life, and that love was reciprocated. In 1969, the couple tied the knot, and two years later, they welcomed their son, Josh Evans.
Ali MacGraw was the hot new star of the 1970s, but her private life and marriage with Evans would soon come to an end. Steve McQueen had visited their home to ask her to star alongside him in The Getaway, and the two Hollywood stars clicked right away.
“I looked in those blue eyes, and my knees started knocking,” MacGraw recalled. “I became obsessed.”
MacGraw and McQueen had an affair, and she soon left Evans to live with the actor in Malibu, along with her son Josh.
“Steve was this very original, principled guy who didn’t seem to be part of the system, and I loved that,” she said.
Ali MacGraw – Steve McQueen
But after a while, Ali realized that Steve McQueen had his own problems. Following his father abandoning his mother, a then-14-year-old Steve was sent to a school for delinquent children. MacGraw said he never trusted women after that.
(Photo by Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images)
He didn’t like that she worked and had her own career. For a while, Ali stayed home to raise their sons. But her husband’s demands were something Ali simply couldn’t accept in the long run.
Not only that, but he’d explode if she even looked at another man. He also wanted her to sign a prenuptial agreement, promising not to ask for anything if they’d divorce. She abided by the agreement when they did divorce in 1978.
“I couldn’t even go to art class because Steve expected his ‘old lady’ to be there every night with dinner on the table,” she recalled.
“Steve’s idea of hot was not me. He liked blond bimbos, and they were always around.”
This was the start of a pretty dark time in MacGraw’s life. She arrived on set to shoot the 1978 film Convoy both drunk and high, which prompted her to quit drugs.
BRIDE KICKS HOMELESS MAN OUT OF HER WEDDING UNTIL HE STARTS SINGING A SONG THAT ONLY SHE & HER DAD KNEW.
The ballroom shimmered, a testament to months of meticulous planning. Crystalline chandeliers cast a warm glow on tables laden with floral arrangements, each bloom a perfect testament to the bride’s vision. Jessica, radiant in her designer gown, felt a thrill course through her. This was it. The wedding of the century.
But as the guests began to arrive, a wrinkle appeared in the otherwise flawless tapestry of her day. A security guard approached her, his face a mask of polite concern. “Ma’am, there’s an elderly gentleman at the entrance. He insists on seeing you, but… well, he doesn’t quite meet the dress code. And, if I may be frank, he seems… unkempt.”
Jessica sighed. Of all the days for a complication. “I don’t know any elderly gentlemen,” she said, her voice laced with annoyance. “Please, just have him removed. I don’t want anything to disrupt the reception.”
The security guard nodded and turned to leave. Jessica watched as he approached the entrance, her eyes narrowing as she spotted the man in question. He was old, his clothes worn and patched, his hair a tangled mess. He looked, frankly, like a homeless man. A wave of disgust washed over her. She couldn’t have that at her wedding.
“Please, take him away before my guests smell that stench,” she instructed, her voice clipped.
The old man tried to speak, to explain, but the security guards, ever efficient, quickly escorted him away. Jessica dismissed the incident, focusing once more on the festivities.
Later, as the band took a break and the guests mingled, a hush fell over the room. A lone figure had taken the stage. It was the old man, the one she had dismissed so readily. He held a microphone, his posture surprisingly dignified. Before Jessica could react, he began to sing.
The melody was haunting, melancholic, and achingly familiar. It was a song her father used to sing to her, a song he had written himself. A song only she and he knew. He had sung it to her just weeks before he died, when she was seven years old, a song about a little girl and her dreams.
Jessica froze. The blood drained from her face. The room seemed to fade away, replaced by the memory of her father’s warm smile and the sound of his gentle voice singing that very song. Tears welled in her eyes, blurring her vision.
As the last note faded, the old man lowered the microphone and stepped towards her. He stopped a few feet away, his eyes, surprisingly clear and intelligent, fixed on hers.
“Hello, Jessica,” he said, his voice raspy but kind.
Jessica couldn’t speak. She could only stare at him, her mind reeling.
“I know it’s been a long time,” he continued. “I’m… I’m your grandfather.”
The room gasped. Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Jessica’s mind raced, trying to reconcile the image of the disheveled old man with the grandfather she barely remembered. Her father had spoken of him occasionally, a man who had left their family when Jessica was a baby. A man she had thought was dead.
“Your father… he loved this song,” the old man said, his voice thick with emotion. “He sang it to you every night. He told me… he told me to sing it for you on your wedding day.”
Jessica’s tears flowed freely now, a mixture of grief and disbelief. She had never known her grandfather, had never even thought about him. And yet, here he was, on her wedding day, brought to her by a song from her father, a song that unlocked a flood of memories she hadn’t realized she had.
She rushed forward, throwing her arms around him. He was thin, frail, but his embrace was warm and strong. “Grandpa,” she whispered, her voice choked with tears.
The wedding of the century had taken an unexpected turn. It wasn’t just a celebration of her union with her fiancé; it was a reunion, a rediscovery of a lost part of her family. The old man, the one she had dismissed as a vagrant, had brought her a gift more precious than any diamond, a connection to her past, a reminder of the love that had shaped her. And as she stood there, in the arms of her grandfather, surrounded by the whispers of her guests, Jessica knew that this was the most meaningful, most unforgettable moment of her life.
Leave a Reply