Ali MacGraw – a mom of one – practices yoga and works for animal rights. She lives in a small adobe home.

“I have this amazing life,” she said.

“I’m learning how to live in the present and be grateful for what’s working rather than look for the ‘what’s not working’ piece.”

Still in ‘Love’
40 years on, here’s the true story behind ‘Story’

In early 1970, I was witness to a historical moment on my college campus.

No, I wasn’t at Kent State University when Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on students. I was at the City College of New York when Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neal shot a scene for “Love Story” in the Great Hall. And I have a photo of myself with Ali MacGraw to prove it.

At that point, nobody could imagine the grip “Love Story” would have on American culture during an era of social unrest. Even today, 40 years later, it remains one of Hollywood’s most famous romantic tragedies.

Erich Segal’s schmaltzy novel, about a conceited Harvard jock and his doomed musician girlfriend, opens, like the movie, with the immortal lines: “What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died? That she was beautiful and brilliant? That she loved Mozart and Bach, the Beatles, and me?”

This was a $2 million movie (not much, even in those days) being shot by Paramount Pictures, literally on the verge of being closed by its conglomerate owners as moviegoing plummeted to its lowest ebb since the medium’s earliest days.

Studio chief Robert Evans cast his new wife, former model Ali MacGraw, as the female lead, Jenny Cohen. Because the WASP actress had made her screen breakthrough playing Jewish-American Princess Brenda Patimkin in “Goodbye Columbus” the year before, her character became the Italian-American Jenny Cavalleri to prevent Ali MacGraw from being typecast.

No established screen actors wanted to play the rich preppy Oliver Barrett III, due to the high cheese factor of the script.According to Evans’ memoir, Jon Voight, Michael Douglas, Michael York, Jeff Bridges and his brother Beau all turned the script down – even when they were offered 10 percent of the gross.

Arthur Hiller, a journeyman director who agreed to take on “Love Story” as a “filler” between other assignments as a favor to Evans, liked an unknown stage actor he tested for Oliver – Christopher Walken. Evans preferred Ryan O’Neal, then best-known for the TV soap “Peyton Place,” who very reluctantly accepted.

The cast also includes John Marley – who would memorably wake up with a horse’s head in his bed as the producer Jack Woltz in “The Godfather” a couple of years later – as Jenny’s father, and “Tom” Lee Jones (Harvard ‘69) in his screen debut as Oliver’s roommate.

Most of “Love Story” was shot in the winter of 1969-’70 in Cambridge, Mass. At some point, Harvard officials withdrew permission, reportedly because artificial snow used during the shoot damaged trees on campus. So, after filming moved to NYC – there were major scenes shot along Fifth Avenue and at the Wollman rink in Central Park (where a tiny set representing a rink-side cafe was constructed) – buildings at Fordham University in The Bronx stood in for Harvard in one scene.

Interiors for Oliver’s commencement were shot at CCNY – a sequence that runs about 45 seconds in the film. That’s where I met with Ali MacGraw when I was 20.

Ali MacGraw

Elizabeth Alice “Ali” MacGraw[1]  (born April 1, 1938)[2]  is an American actress. She is best known for her role in Love Story, for which she won a Golden Globe and received an Academy Award nomination.

Ali MacGraw  Early life

Ali MacGraw was born in Pound Ridge, Westchester County, New York, the daughter of commercial artists Frances (née Klein) and Richard MacGraw.[1][3] Her mother was of Hungarian Jewish background and her father was of Scottish descent.[1][4][5] She has one brother, Dick, an artist.[6] MacGraw has described her father as “violent.