Ali MacGraw, an 84-year-old actress, shot to prominence instantly in Hollywood but vanished from the entertainment industry as soon as she did. She now resides in a small, isolated town and is ageing gracefully with her grey hair.
Elizabeth Alice MacGraw, better known as Ali MacGraw, was born in Pound Ridge, New York, on April 1, 1939. Before moving to Greenwich Village, her mother, Frances, was an artist who taught at a school in Paris. She wed Richard MacGraw, an artist as well. Ali was born in 1939. Richard, Ali’s father, is said to have had problems as a child, which set him apart from other people.
He had fled to the sea at the age of sixteen after a dreadful upbringing in an orphanage. He would later attend a Munich, Germany, art school. “Daddy was frightened and really, really angry. Ali clarified that her father’s adult life was devoted to “suppressing the rage that covered all his hurt,” adding that had never forgiven his true parents for abandoning him.
Their family was also struggling financially. Frances and Richard, Ali, and her brother Richard Jr. were forced to move into a house on a wilderness preserve in Pound Ridge, where they shared a home 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 supported the family by working on a number of commercial art projects, but Richard struggled to sell his paintings and became very frustrated. Richard’s brother, Ali, was a victim of 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 pursue a creative career as she grew older. She was a
By the age of 22, Ali MacGraw travelled to New York and earned her first job as an assistant editor at Harper’s Bazaar, working with photographers as an assistant.
Diana Vreeland, a fashion editor, recalled hiring Ali as a “flunkie.” Have you ever watched The Devil Wears Prada? That’s pretty much what it was. “That was ‘Girl! Bring me a pencil, please,” MacGraw remembered. For several months, the future Hollywood star worked as an assistant.
After around six months, Ali MacGraw was hired as a stylist and granted a higher salary after fashion photographer Melvin Sokolsky saw how gorgeous she looked. She would ultimately remain in that role for six years.
Vanity Fair and Harper’s Bazaar art director Ruth Ansel remembers, “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.” As a stylist, Ali excelled. But shortly, she was requested to work in front of the cameras as a model.
She quickly made appearances on magazine covers and even in TV ads all around the world. Ali fell headfirst into the acting industry as one thing led to another.
She had been sketched nude by Salvador Dali a couple of years ago. But when the surrealist artist started kissing her toes, MacGraw decided that she’d rather be an actress than a model
Ali entered the field of film directly from being an unheard-of stylist, and boy, did she do it spectacularly. She received little instruction in the craft of filmmaking, which added depth to her performance. The audience adored her for her remarkable natural beauty.
She was asked to star in the 1969 movie Goodbye, Columbus after having a small part in A Lovely Way to Die (1968). It turned out to be a superb call, with MacGraw collecting a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer – Female. She had her major worldwide breakthrough the following year in a role that would essentially define her career.
Ali MacGraw’s agency had sent her a script. She loved it so much that she had read it and cried twice. She made the decision that she truly wanted a role in it and arranged a meeting at the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel with the movie’s producer, Robert Evans, who was then chief of production at Paramount Pictures.
Evans fell deeply in love with her and thought she was ideal for the role in the film Love Story. MacGraw, who played Jenny, costarred with Ryan O’Neal in the film Love Story. Ali portrayed a working-class college student in the American romantic drama film, which went on to become a huge hit.
When Love Story first came out in 1970, it was the most popular movie in the US and at the time the sixth most grossing film in both the US and Canada. Wow, the audience loved it.
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 liked 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.
When Steve McQueen came to their house to ask her to co-star with him in The Getaway, Ali MacGraw, the sexy new star of the 1970s, realised that her marriage to Evans and her private life would soon come to an end. “I looked in those blue eyes, and my knees started knocking,” MacGraw recalled, “and 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 recalled.
But after a while, Ali recognised that Steve McQueen had his own troubles. Following his father abandoning his mother, a then-14-year-old Steve was put to a school for delinquent youngsters. According to MacGraw, he never trusted women again.
“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.” Ali stayed at home to raise their sons for a while, but her husband’s demands were something she couldn’t handle in the long run, and he would blow up if she even looked at another man. She also signed a prenuptial agreement, promising not to ask for anything if they divorced.
This was the start of a really terrible phase in MacGraw’s life. She came on set to shoot the 1978 film Convoy both intoxicated and high, which led her to quit narcotics.
When MacGraw returned to show business in the late 1970s, she told The Guardian, “It’s brutal for women.” At the same time, a number of her films, including Players (1970) and Just Tell Me What You Want (1980), failed.
“I don’t think there’s a woman over 40 who has 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.” MacGraw briefly worked as a Hollywood superstar actress before deciding to pursue a career in interior design.
She made appearances in the television miniseries The Winds of War (1983) and China Rose (1985), but her life would soon take a turn for the worse. She couldn’t find any work in film, and she felt useless, but she also didn’t feel complete unless she had a partner, describing being in love as “a drug height”.
She drank a lot because she felt desperate and alone. She checked herself into California’s Betty Ford Clinic in 1986. “When I drank, the worst things happened,” she remarked. “I became enamoured with other women’s husbands and lost my judgement.”
Josh Evans, her 15-year-old son, found it difficult to watch his mother go through hardship. After 30 days of group treatment, MacGraw emerged a stronger individual. Another family tragedy happened in 1993 when a wildfire destroyed her California home. After that, she made the decision to leave Los Angeles and relocate to a town close to Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Last year, she disclosed, “I live in a little village called Tesuque, north of Santa Fe, New Mexico.” McGraw claims that rather than viewing her as a former Hollywood star, her neighbours value the communal service she has been providing. She has been volunteering, for instance, at Santa Fe, New Mexico’s annual International Folk Art Market. After taking a break from performing,
Ali MacGraw returned to the stage in 2006. The Broadway version of the Danish film Festen brought her and her Love Story co-star Ryan O’Neal back together. For the past few decades, MacGraw has been out of the spotlight outside of the Broadway production. She has dedicated her life to the cause of animal rights. and created numerous popular yoga videos.
Speaking to the Herald-Tribune in 2019, MacGraw stated that she’s still open to new adventures and work. “One of the lucky things for someone my age is that I’m open and curious,” MacGraw said. “There’s not just one thing I love to do and feel bereft if I can’t. But I know that I’m not happy when I’m not doing something creative.”
Even though Ali abandoned performing, her family still has a foot in the profession. Son Josh Evans is an actor and director, and he’s earned a wonderful name for himself in Hollywood. He also resembles his mother a lot.
Being the child of Hollywood celebrities Robert Evans and Ali MacGraw certainly came with plenty of pressure. But for Josh Evans, born in January of 1971, it was pretty much show business he wanted to do from the start. The first job he ever wanted to do, however, wasn’t in the film business. He didn’t dream about working as an actor, but it was just one of those things that happened. In 1989, Josh Evans got a little part in Dream a Little Dream (1989), but he wanted to do more. As a teenager with little to lose, he used to go to the manager’s office to see the breakdowns of movies being made.
At that point, he ran upon Oliver Stone, the well-known director, whom he recognised. At the time, he was filming Born on the Fourth of July, which starred Tom Cruise. Josh also wanted to join. I just knew [Oliver Stone] from Platoon at the time. The younger brother had a part in the film he was working on with Tom Cruise. Josh Evans remembers, “He set me up with Oliver Stone because I wanted to play that part.”
Oliver said, “Oh, you think you look like Tom Cruise?” when I sat with him. I know now that he was making fun of me, but I said, “Yeah, I do.” “We’ll see what happens,” he remarked. I was called for an audition four months later, and I was cast. You could sense how special that film was going to be, and it was really thrilling. Josh has had a successful acting and directing career ever since. He starred in the biographic film The Doors in 1991 and since, he’s been both acting and directing.
“I am definitely more comfortable on the side of the camera that does not show myself,” Josh Evans says, adding that he has directed eight films, including Death in the Desert (2015), which starred Michael Madsen. “If an interesting opportunity comes up, I am not opposed to it. I think there are other people out there who are more qualified and want it more than I do.” “As far as directing and telling my stories, I would do that for free, whereas acting is more of a job, but I enjoy it once I do it.”
Josh is a really attractive man who genuinely looks a lot like her mother, Ali MacGraw, especially in his large, amazing eyes. Ali’s father, Robert Evans, his ex-husband, died in 2019. But in 2012, when he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the family had the wonderful experience of being there for him. Josh has two previous marriages.
He wed Roxy Saint, an American singer and performer, in October 2012. Grandma Ali MacGraw loves to spend time with her amazing family, and by that time, their son Jackson was two years old.
Ali MacGraw and Josh Evans are undoubtedly very proud of their amazing family. We wish them the best in the future and who knows, maybe we’ll see them on the same stage or movie set in the future. “He’s so wonderful,” MacGraw said about her son. “He’s my favourite human being on the planet, and he goes out with a girl I’m nuts about. Their relationship is so much about, among other things, friendship and respect.”
