Ali MacGraw, 86, Went From ‘Love Story’ to a Quiet Life in New Mexico: See What the ’70s It Girl Has Been Up To
After quitting acting in the '90s, she's at peace with being far from the spotlight—and she looks stunning as ever
As the star of the 1970 blockbuster romance Love Story, Ali MacGraw became one of the most popular actresses of her era. While the movie has often been parodied for its over-the-top melodrama (who can forget the line “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” or the image of the actress on her deathbed while still looking gorgeous and perfectly put together?), Love Story‘s iconic status is undeniable, and it catapulted MacGraw to the A-list.
MacGraw defined a decade, but she has just 15 acting credits to her name, and left the film industry for good in the ’90s. Read on to see how she got her start, what she said about her rapid rise to fame and how she really feels about her retirement.
From a model to an overnight sensation at 30
Born Elizabeth Alice MacGraw in 1939, Ali MacGraw had a somewhat unusual career path, as unlike most actresses at the time, who started out in the teens or early 20s, she was already 30 when she made her film debut in the 1969 adaptation of the novel Goodbye, Columbus.
Before she started acting, MacGraw worked at Harper’s Bazaar in the early ’60s, assisting the legendary writer and editor Diana Vreeland. Her striking looks, with long brunette hair, dark brows and soulful eyes, led her to work as a fashion model. She then began appearing in commercials, and from there she was cast in her first film.
Reflecting on her career in a 2024 New York Times feature, the actress, now 85, said, “Looking back, it seems so strange that—overnight, at 30—I became a ‘movie star.’ I’m relieved I got out of that often exciting, often terrifying decade alive. I’d been working since I was 14, but I hadn’t gone to school for acting. I was chosen to be in Goodbye, Columbus, and then everything exploded with the stupefying surprise of Love Story—this cost-nothing project nobody expected to be a success.”
How ‘Love Story’ changed Ali MacGraw’s life
After Goodbye, Columbus, MacGraw starred as the wealthy Ryan O’Neal‘s working class love interest in Love Story. The 1970 film became one of the top-grossing movies of all time, thanks in large part to the chemistry between the charismatic pair.
MacGraw still marvels at the wild success of Love Story over 50 years later, and in a 2021 Hollywood Reporter interview, she said, “It made us movie stars. It’s so odd to say that, but it’s what happened.”
After Love Story, MacGraw starred opposite Steve McQueen in the 1972 thriller The Getaway. She and McQueen had an affair (at the time she was married to infamous bigwig producer Robert Evans and prior to that, she was briefly married to banker Robin Hoen) and married in 1973. MacGraw and McQueen were one of Hollywood’s power couples until their divorce in 1978, brought on by the combination of his infidelities and drug use with her battle with alcoholism. She never remarried.
In the Hollywood Reporter interview, MacGraw claimed The Getaway was the last movie she felt proud of, saying, “I thought it was quite astounding that I had those three consecutive movies [Goodbye, Columbus, Love Story, The Getaway] before I really stopped doing anything particularly good.”
MacGraw appeared in two more films in the ’70s, the 1978 comedy Convoy, which starred Kris Kristofferson and was based on the hit novelty song of the same name, and Players, a 1979 tennis-themed romance which flopped at the box office.
Ali MacGraw’s later roles
MacGraw started out the ’80s starring in the comedy Just Tell Me What You Want (1980). She then moved into TV roles, with the miniseries The Winds of War and the TV movie China Rose, both in 1983. In 1985, she had a 13-episode run on the glitzy primetime soap Dynasty. MacGraw bluntly told The Wall Street Journal, “One or two things I did for the money, Dynasty would be one of them; I definitely did that for the money.”
After Dynasty, MacGraw acted in the movie Murder Elite (1985) and appeared in two TV movies, Survive the Savage Sea (1992) and Gunsmoke: The Long Ride (1993). She then appeared in the 1994 film Natural Causes. That year, she released a popular yoga video, Ali MacGraw: Yoga Mind & Body. In 1997, she had her final role in Glam, a film directed by Josh Evans, her son from her marriage to Robert Evans.
What Ali MacGraw is up to today
So, what has MacGraw been up to ever since she stopped acting? She couldn’t be further from the hustle and bustle of the film industry, and has been living a quiet life in New Mexico for decades.
Looking back on her journey in the film world, she said, “It’s brutal for women. I don’t think there’s a woman over 40 who’s ever been conspicuously in the spotlight who doesn’t get sick of the kind of questioning the media lays on you, the fashion industry, all of it. It’s cruel.”
In New Mexico, where she moved after the traumatic experience of losing her Malibu home in a 1993 wildfire, MacGraw is blissfully removed from these issues, and she finds joy in being involved with her local community and campaigning for causes like education and animal rights.
MacGraw isn’t interested in returning to acting, and has a great deal of perspective on how surreal it was to briefly be one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. As she told a local New Mexico magazine, “The thing I’m the proudest of is that I survived it, and didn’t drink the Kool-Aid. That’s the truth. I never became a stuck-on-myself a–hole. And it’s so easy. The accolades for fame in this country are just beyond belief. It is a machine that keeps going. And I had extraordinary opportunities, but really, it’s a killer to wake up overnight and suddenly have everybody falling all over you. And also, I never behaved like a diva ever, ever, ever. I really didn’t know what I was doing and I was just doing the best I could. And I’m so glad I’m not doing it anymore.”
The former star’s serene New Mexico lifestyle serves her well, and she summed up the appeal of being out of the spotlight in her New York Times interview, saying, “I’m grateful I had all that, but I live a very different life now. I don’t care at all about being seen in the latest piece of clothing or knowing the latest song. I don’t feel diminished by not knowing those things. I did it all and was looked at, and that was for another time.”
While Ali MacGraw will forever be known as the girl from Love Story, we’re glad to know she’s found peace outside of Hollywood.
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