‘Love Story’ Actress Ali MacGraw’s Marriages to Robert Evans and Steve McQueen Made Her the Ultimate ’70s Star
The former actress has embraced singlehood at 86, but before that, her love life got a lot of attention
As the star of the 1970 blockbuster Love Story, Ali MacGraw became one of the biggest It Girls of her day, and given her signature role as a young woman in a dramatic, tragically-fated relationship (with ’70s hunk Ryan O’Neal, no less) she captured the heart of a generation—and her personal life became a source of public fascination.
MacGraw, who has been retired from acting since the ’90s and remains stunning at 86, was married three times, and her marriages to infamous Hollywood producer Robert Evans and Steve McQueen, her costar in the 1972 film The Getaway, earned much attention throughout the ’70s. The actress never remarried following her 1978 divorce from McQueen, and today, she’s happy to keep a low profile and embrace single life.
Read on to learn about Ali MacGraw’s real-life love stories, from her A-list marriages to whether she had a real romantic connection with O’Neal to what she’s said about her love life in recent years.
Ali MacGraw’s pre-fame first marriage
Ali MacGraw got her start as a model in the ’60s and made her acting debut in the 1969 adaptation of the novel Goodbye, Columbus. Before she became famous, she married her college boyfriend, banker Robin Hoen, in 1960. The marriage was brief, and they divorced in 1962. Hoen died in 2016 at age 79.
Ali MacGraw and Robert Evans: Hollywood’s ’70s power couple
In 1969 MacGraw married producer Robert Evans, who worked on iconic films like Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Godfather (1972) and Chinatown (1974) during his tenure as a bigwig at Paramount. Evans oversaw the production of Love Story and had MacGraw cast as the lead, which took her from a rising star to a mega-star.
MacGraw and Evans had a son, Josh, who became a director and actor. During their marriage, Evans encouraged MacGraw to star in the action movie The Getaway opposite Steve McQueen. McQueen was legendary for his swaggering coolness, and he and MacGraw embarked on a scandalous affair during the production of the film, leading her and Evans to break up. Their divorce was finalized in 1973.
Despite all the drama, MacGraw and Evans remained friendly after their split, and Evans said that of his seven marriages, his time with MacGraw meant the most to him. MacGraw appeared publicly with Evans at his 2002 Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony, and following his death at 89 in 2019, she said, “Our son Joshua and I will miss Bob tremendously and we are so very proud of his enormous contribution to the film industry. He will be remembered as a giant.”
Ali MacGraw and Steve McQueen: From a scandalous affair to movie-star marriage
Ali MacGraw and Steve McQueen’s relationship may have started out as a steamy on-set affair, but they married in 1973, becoming one of the most prominent couples of the era. MacGraw fell for McQueen immediately, writing in her memoir, “I was obsessed with Steve from the moment he stepped into my world. There was never enough air for me to breathe to change that feeling.”
The tabloids of the day were all over MacGraw and MacQueen, and there was no shortage of drama during their time together, as both parties battled addiction and committed infidelities, and the actress wrote of their frequent fights in her memoir. The couple divorced after five years of marriage in 1978.
In a 2014 interview, MacGraw admitted, “I always thought he’d leave me. I don’t know what I thought, except that I wasn’t real,” and expressed her deep regret that she and McQueen never had a chance to make amends before his death at 50 in 1980, saying, “It’s very sad to me that as sober, grown-up, nonsexually connected beings, we didn’t get to sit down and clean it all.”
Though McQueen didn’t always treat MacGraw right, in 2018 she told People, “I’m not a victim in any way. There were many times that were just wonderful and there were many times that were just ghastly.”
Did Ali MacGraw date Ryan O’Neal?
Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neal’s chemistry in Love Story led some fans to wonder if they were a real-life couple, but this wasn’t the case. Because the movie was such a big hit, the two stars were forever associated with one another, and over the years they spoke about how they shared a deep connection even though their romance was strictly for the screen.
Following O’Neal’s death at 82 in 2023, MacGraw said, “Working with Ryan, all those years ago, was one of the great experiences of my film career, and we remained friends ever after. He was a skilled actor, charming and funny too.”
How Ali MacGraw has embraced single life
MacGraw never remarried after her divorce from McQueen, and while she was briefly linked to fellow actors like Warren Beatty and Peter Weller and said, “I married some wonderful men,” she’s been single since her retirement.
Today, the actress is happy to live a quiet life in New Mexico, and she’s said, “I have wonderful people in my life, and I feel incredibly blessed.” During a 2010 Love Story reunion, MacGraw reflected on why her marriages failed, saying, “I’m on my own now, but I was an atrocious partner. Most importantly, I never told anybody who I was. I wanted them to read my mind about what I wanted instead of taking a chance.”
Love Story’s most famous line, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” has been quoted countless times over the years, with many puzzling over what the line actually means (MacGraw herself admitted it made no sense!), and she shared her definition of love during the reunion interview, saying, “There are so many kinds of love, and they’re all very intense for me. I’ve had to learn that there’s friendship love, there’s ex-lovers’ love, there’s ex-husbands’ love, there’s kid love, your animals. Love is enormous.”
It seems that long after her tumultuous ’70s marriages, MacGraw has found peace in singlehood—and we think her philosophy on love is way better than the one in her most famous movie!
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