Celebrity Nooz: Ali MacGraw

Ali MacGraw (Actress) as Jennifer - Love Story

Updated: 1/16/18

Name: Ali MacGraw

Birth Name: Alice MacGraw

Born: April 1, 1938 in Pound Ridge, New York

Claim To Fame: She gained notice in 'Goodbye, Columbus', but real stardom came in 1970 with 'Love Story'.

Family Life: Steve McQueen (31 August 1973 - 1978) (divorced)
Robert Evans (24 October 1969 - 1972) (divorced) 1 child

Dated Peter Weller.

Info: Ali's keen eye and sense of style was always celebrated. Her minimalist style basically consisted of healthy skin without much makeup, long gleaming hair pulled back simply, and the ever-present brimless woolen hat that became known as the "Ali Cap."

Trivia: Worked as a fashion stylist on Manhattan photo shoots in her early 20s, until she was eventually asked to work before the cameras as a model.

Made a special appearance at the 74th Annual Academy Awards in 2002.

Representing "Chalfonte-Haddon Hall", Ali was voted Atlantic City's prettiest hotel waitress for the summer 1957 season.

Paramount Production head Robert Evans was developing several high profile projects for her when she filed for divorce. The roles she walked away from to marry lover Steve McQueen were Daisy in 'The Great Gatsby' and Evelyn in 'Chinatown'.

Ali says that even today, more than 35 years after "Love Story" was released, anywhere in the world she goes people come up to her and say, "Oh my God, you made me cry."

Where Are They Now: In 1995 she wrote a well-received autobiography, Moving Pictures (which she now states was "not well written"), which described her struggles with alcohol and male dependence. She was treated for the former at the Betty Ford Center.

Made a tremendously successful Yoga video with the American Yoga Master Erich Schiffmann, 'Ali MacGraw Yoga Mind and Body', which was a bestseller upon release and was still popular more than a decade later. The video's impact was such that in June 2007 Vanity Fair magazine credited her for being one of the people responsible for the practice's recent popularity in the U.S. In keeping with her interests, she narrated a well-received documentary on 'Yoga, The Fire of Yoga' in 2003.

She made her Broadway theater debut in New York City in 2006 as a dysfunctional matriarch in the drama 'Festen' (The Celebration). She was also included in a Seventeen magazine issue for inspiring hairstyles.

In July 2006, she filmed a public service announcement for PETA.

Now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. On why she moved there she said, "I've lived here since 1994. I was living in Los Angeles when one of those wildfires took my house to the ground and I always thought, not having a victim mentality, that was a cosmic kick in the butt to get out of there. And I happened to have just bought a little tiny getaway house in the hills of Tesuque. Suddenly it became apparent that I was meant to live there."

Would she ever consider working on a feature film again? "There's two answers to that. Just to be able to say, 'I did it, but I got so much money and here's a list of places that I gave
it,'" she says. "Or something with a director who believed I could do it, and about something that really mattered."

Looking at today's troubled young starlets. and politely not naming names, Ali observes that she was able to hold her own because stardom came to her when she was already almost 30.

In an interview a couple of years ago she said, "I live a very healthy lifestyle that would probably bore the daylights out of people. I do yoga every day. I meditate. I walk my dog for
40 minutes even if it means getting up at 5:30 in the morning because I want the stillness. I do all the things we were told as kids: I don't smoke or do drugs, I don't drink. It's not to be prissy; it's just that it's healthier for me."

Write To Ali MacGraw:
Ali MacGraw
c/o Laina Cohn
Relativity Management
8899 Beverly Blvd #510
Los Angeles, CA 90048

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