Ali MacGraw became a Hollywood superstar overnight. But just as quickly as she rose to fame, she disappeared from show business altogether.
Ali MacGraw
Ali MacGraw – born Elizabeth Alice MacGraw – was born on April 1, 1939, in Pound Ridge, New York, USA. Her mother, Frances, was an artist and worked at a school in Paris, later settling in Greenwich Village. She married Richard MacGraw, who was also an artist. In 1939, Ali was born.
Ali’s father Richard supposedly had issues from his own childhood which made him a little bit different from others.
He had survived a terrible childhood in an orphanage, running away at the age of 16 to go to sea. He would later study at an art school in Munich, Germany.
“Daddy was frightened and really, really angry. He never forgave his real parents for giving him up,” Ali explained, saying said her father’s adult life was spent “suppressing the rage that covered all his hurt.”
Ali MacGraw – childhood
Money was short for their family, too. Frances and Richard, together with Ali and her brother, Richard Jr, had to move into a house on a Pound Ridge wilderness preserve which they shared 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 worked with several commercial-art assignments and supported the family. At the same time, Richard had a hard time selling his paintings, and as a result became very frustrated. Ali’s brother Richard became a victim for 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 go into a creative line of work as she got older. She earned a scholarship at the prep school Rosemary Hall, and in 1956, she moved to study at Wellesley College in Massachusetts
By the age of 22, Ali MacGraw moved to New York and got her first job as an assistant editor at Harper’s Bazaar, working with photographers as an assistant.
Fashion work in New York
Fashion editor Diana Vreeland hired Ali as, what she recalls as, a “flunkie”. Ever seen the film The Devil Wears Prada? Well, it was pretty much that.
“It was ‘Girl! Get me a pencil!’,” MacGraw recalled.
The future Hollywood celebrity worked her job as an assistant for several months. Then, about six months in, fashion photographer Melvin Sokolsky noticed her beautiful looks, and Ali MacGraw was hired as a stylist,and given a better salary. She’d end up staying in that position for six years.
“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,” Ruth Ansel, a former art director of Vanity Fair and Harper’s Bazaar recalls.
Ali was great as a stylist. But soon, she was asked to work in front of the cameras as a model. It didn’t take long before she was on magazine covers all over the world, even appearing in television commercials. For thing led to another, and Ali tumbled headfirst into the profession of acting.
She had been sketched nude by Salvador Dali a couple of years earlier. But when the surrealist artist started sucking her toes, MacGraw decided that she’d rather be an actress than a model.
Ali MacGraw – films
Ali went straight from an unknown stylist and into the world of cinema, and boy, did she do it with a bang.
She was untutored in the art of film, which gave her acting another dimension. Her natural beauty was stunning, and the audience loved her.
Following a small role in A Lovely Way to Die (1968), she was asked to star in the 1969 film Goodbye, Columbus. It turned out to be a great call, with MacGraw receiving a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer – Female. The following year, she got her big international breakthrough with a role that would pretty much sum up her career.
Ali MacGraw had received a script from her agent. She’d read it and wept twice because of how much she loved it. She decided she really wanted a part in it, and got herself a meeting with the film’s producer Robert Evans – who at the time was Paramount Picture’s head of production – at the Beverly Hills Hotel’s Polo Lounge. Not only did Evans think she was perfect for the part in the movie Love Story, he absolutely fell in love with her.
MacGraw – playing the role of Jenny – acted alongside Ryan O’Neal in the movie Love Story. The American romantic drama film, in which Ali played a working-class college student, became a smash hit.
Love Story hit the cinemas in 1970, and wow did the audience cherish it. It became the No. 1 film in the United States, and at the time, it was the sixth highest grossing movie in history in the US and Canada.
Award-winning actress
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 loved 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.
Ali MacGraw was the hot new star of the 1970s, but her private life and marriage with Evans would soon come to an end. Steve McQueen had visited their home to ask her to star alongside him in The Getaway, and the two Hollywood stars clicked right away.
“I looked in those blue eyes, and my knees started knocking,” MacGraw recalled. “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 said.
Ali MacGraw – Steve McQueen
But after a while, Ali realized that Steve McQueen had his own problems. Following his father abandoning his mother, a then-14-year-old Steve was sent to a school for delinquent children. MacGraw said he never trusted women after that.
He didn’t like that she worked and had her own career. For a while, Ali stayed home to raise their sons. But her husband’s demands were something Ali simply couldn’t accept in the long run.
Not only that, but he’d explode if she even looked at another man. He also wanted her to sign a prenuptial agreement, promising not to ask for anything if they’d divorce. She abided by the agreement when they did divorce in 1978.
“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.”
This was the start of a pretty dark time in MacGraw’s life. She arrived on set to shoot the 1978 film Convoy both drunk and high, which prompted her to quit drugs.
Leaving show business
At the same time, several of her movies, such as Players (1970) and Just Tell Me What You Want (1980) flopped.
“It’s brutal for women,” MacGraw told The Guardian about returning to show business in the late 1970s.
“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.”
MacGraw had a short stint as a Hollywood superstar actress. Thereafter, she decided to start working in interior design instead, but didn’t fully give up on her show business career. She appeared in the television miniseries The Winds of War (1983) and China Rose (1985), but soon, her life would change for the worse.
Ali MacGraw simply couldn’t get any work in film, and she thought she was useless. At the same time, she didn’t feel complete unless she had a partner, describing being in love like “a drug high”.
She felt alone and desperate, and drank heavily. In 1986, she checked herself into the Betty Ford Clinic in California.
“The worst stuff happened when I drank,” she said. “I lost my judgment; I fancied other women’s husbands.”
Family tragedies
Her son Josh Evans was 15 at the time and had a hard time watching his mother suffering. MacGraw spent 30 days in group therapy and came out a stronger person.
In 1993, another family tragedy occurred when her house in California burnt down due to a wildfire. She then decided to move from Los Angeles and settled in a town near Santa Fe, New Mexico.
“I live in a little village north of Santa Fe, New Mexico called Tesuque,” she revealed last year.
According to McGraw, her neighbors don’t see her as a former Hollywood star – instead they appreciate all the community work she’s been doing.
For example, she has been doing volunteer work at the annual International Folk Art Market in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Ali MacGraw left acting, but in 2006, she found herself once again on stage. She reunited with her Love Story co-actor Ryan O’Neal in the Broadway adaptation of the Danish film Festen.
Outside of the Broadway show, MacGraw’s been out of the spotlight the last couple of decades. She’s put her heart into work for animal rights … and produced plenty of successful 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.”
Josh Evans – Ali MacGraw
Even though Ali left acting, her family still has a foot in the business. Son Josh Evans is an actor and director, and he’s made a great name for himself in Hollywood.
Also, he looks so much like his mother!
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 had a small part in Dream a Little Dream (1989), but he wanted to do more. As a teenager with nothing to lose, he used to go to the manager’s office to see the breakdowns of movies being made.
Josh Evans – actor & director
That’s when he met someone he recognized in famous director Oliver Stone. He was making Born on the Fourth of July at the time, starring Tom Cruise. And Josh wanted in.
“At the time I just knew [Oliver Stone] from Platoon. He was making a movie with Tom Cruise and there was a role for the little brother. I wanted to play that part, so he got me a meeting with Oliver Stone,” Josh Evans recalls.
“When I sat with him, Oliver asked ‘Oh, you think you look like Tom Cruise?’. Now knowing him, I realize he was mocking me, but I said, ‘Yeah, I do.’ So, he said, ‘We’ll see what happens.’ Four months later, I got a call to audition and I got the part. It was very exciting and you could feel how special that movie was going to be.”
Since then, Josh has had a great career both acting and directing. He starred in the biographic film The Doors in 1991 and since, he’s been both acting and directing.
With eight films on his resume as a director, he actually had Michael Madsen starring in his 2015 film Death in the Desert. But what does he like best?
“I am definitely more comfortable on the side of the camera that does not show myself,” Josh Evans says.
“If an interesting opportunity presents itself, 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 Evans – family
Josh is a really handsome man, and the resemblance to her mother Ali MacGraw truly is great, especially in his big wonderful eyes.
In 2019, his father – Ali’s ex-husband – Robert Evans passed away. However, the family had the great memory of being together for him when he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2012.
Josh has been married twice. In October 2012, he married American singer and musician Roxy Saint. By then, their son Jackson was two years old – Grandma Ali MacGraw loves spending time with her wonderful family.
“He’s so wonderful,” MacGraw said about her son. “He’s my favorite 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.”
Ali MacGraw and Josh Evans surely are very proud of their wonderful family. We wish them all the best in the future, and who knows, maybe we’ll see them on the same stage or movie set in the future?
Our Disgusting Colleague Constantly Broke Hygienic & Etiquette Rules – We Found Way to Teach Her a Lesson
Just when Ashley thought her office life couldn’t get more chaotic, along comes Karen, turning every rule of workplace decorum on its head. With Karen’s disruptive behavior peaking, Ashley plans a birthday surprise that could mend fences or alter office dynamics forever.
A woman sitting around table holding a tablet | Source: Unsplash
Hi everyone, I’m Ashley. I have a story about office life quirks that might sound familiar to many of you. So, buckle up, and don’t hesitate to chime in if you’ve ever found yourself in a similar situation.
Three office workers chatting and laughing | Source: Unsplash
I work at an advertising firm—a place where no two days are the same. Some days crawl by, while others whiz past so fast you barely have time to catch your breath.
A group of cheerful multi-ethnic colleagues having a party after work | Source: Pexels
Last-minute surprises? A regular feature. But despite the chaos, I genuinely enjoy what I do. I’m surrounded by awesome colleagues, and the workplace vibe is top-notch. Well, it was top-notch, until Karen came along.
A woman in a red sweater leaning on a table while working | Source: Pexels
Now, I’m all for welcoming new faces. Newcomers stir things up, bring fresh ideas and skills, and generally pump new life into the team. But Karen… well, she’s a different story. It’s not that her work is bad, per se—it’s just that there’s a lot left to be desired, particularly in the ‘attitude’ department.
Dirty glasses and plates by the sink | Source: Pexels
So, Karen was quite the character. She had this habit that drove all of us up the wall. Every day after lunch, while the rest of us made sure to clean up our dishes and keep the kitchen tidy, Karen would just leave hers in the sink. Not a care in the world, just her dirty plates piling up.
A female office worker relaxing with her feet on the table | Source: Pexels
And if that weren’t enough to test our patience, her favorite pastime during work hours was napping. But not just any napping. Picture this: Karen, sprawled out in her office chair, legs thrown up on the table, shoes marking the surface with all kinds of dirt. It was a sight.
The snoring was the worst part! It was like having a freight train running through the room. Every. Single. Day.
An indoor swimming pool | Source: Pexels
But it gets worse. Once a week, we would head to the pool for a relaxing break from the daily grind. Except Karen decided it was the perfect place to… file her feet. Right there in the shower area while we were all around. Gross, right? Super disgusting.
A woman filing her feet | Source: freepik
Then, there was the lunch incident. Imagine sitting at a restaurant, trying to enjoy your meal, and there’s Karen, at the same table, flossing her teeth. Not discreetly, but openly.
Two women having lunch outdoors | Source: Pexels
One time, a piece of whatever she had for breakfast shot out and landed smack on my friend’s and my face. We were mortified. That was it. The absolute last straw.
A woman holding a dental floss | Source: freepik
My friend, I, and nearly all our colleagues were fed up. So, we came up with a plan. Karen’s birthday was coming up, and we figured it was the perfect opportunity to clue her in on her less-than-charming habits. It was high time for a lesson, and we were just the folks to deliver it.
A group of people talking and looking at a laptop | Source: Pexels
So Karen’s birthday rolls around, and we decide to go all out. The whole department comes together, balloons floating everywhere, a big cake sitting proudly on the table, and of course, a special present just for her.
She walks in, sees the setup, and her face lights up. “Oh, guys, you shouldn’t have…” she exclaims, genuinely surprised.
Happy young women holding stacked presents | Source: Pexels
As she begins to unwrap her gift, we all gather around, watching eagerly. The moment she pulls off the last piece of wrapping paper, her expression changes dramatically.
A woman looking at a white paper in her hands | Source: Pexels
There, in her hands, is a huge poster framed beautifully but the content? Not so beautiful for her. It’s a list of etiquette and hygiene rules we all felt she desperately needed to follow.
A woman unwrapping her birthday gift | Source: Pexels
Her face turned a deep shade of purple as she read the list aloud: ‘Wash your dirty dishes, no sleeping in the office, stop the loud snoring, and please, for the love of God, stop filing your feet in the pool shower area and flossing your teeth at meals.’
The room fell silent for a moment, everyone holding their breath. But we didn’t stop there.
A fondant cake on a stand | Source: Unsplash
We made sure these new ‘rules to live by’ were impossible to miss. Each rule was also plastered on the cake and written on each balloon floating around the room. We wanted to make sure our sweet Karen wouldn’t forget them anytime soon.
A shocked woman covering her eyes with one hand | Source: Pexels
The mix of shock and realization on Karen’s face said it all. This birthday, she got a gift that would keep on giving—hopefully, a nudge towards better office etiquette.
Balloons beside a white wall | Source: Pexels
Now, before you jump to conclusions about why we took such a drastic measure when we could have just had a simple chat with Karen—trust me, we tried.
Work colleagues having a conversation | Source: Pexels
And not just a casual mention; we really sat down with her and laid it all out, super politely. We told her how her habits were affecting the office atmosphere.
A woman sitting alone next to a birthday cake and presents | Source: Pexels
She nodded, promised to be more considerate, and everything seemed like it was going to be okay. But, alas, nothing changed. It was as if our conversation never happened. So yeah, we went with the drastic step.
Why her birthday, you ask? Well, it’s not a day one easily forgets, right? And we figured it would make the message stick.
Photographs lying beside a birthday cake | Source: Pexels
Plus, we made sure to document the whole thing. Pictures, videos—the works. These weren’t just for laughs; they served as a kind of proof, something to remind Karen of her promise in case she slipped back into old habits.
After unveiling the gift, there was a tense moment. Karen was visibly upset, a mix of anger and embarrassment coloring her features.
A brown-haired woman with confetti in her hair | Source: Pexels
She wasn’t expecting to be ambushed with a ‘hygiene intervention’ in front of everyone on her special day. Honestly, it took her a moment, but once the initial shock wore off, she agreed—again—to follow the rules we’d laid out.
This time, though, there was a serious undertone to her agreement. Maybe the public nature of the intervention made the difference.
Office workers doing a high five | Source: Pexels
What about you? Have you ever dealt with a ‘Karen’ at your workplace? How would you have handled the situation? Would you have done the intervention differently, maybe more privately, or not at all? Drop your thoughts and let’s chat about the wild world of office dynamics. I’m all ears!
A woman enjoying a drink while working on her laptop | Source: Pexels
Take a look at another interesting story below:
I Served a Woman Who Mocked Me throughout High School & Finally Got My Revenge after 20 Years
Under the soft glow of the evening lights, the restaurant buzzed with the cheerful din of a successful night. Yet, as I moved between the tables, careful not to bump into any sharp table corners, a familiar and unwelcome face caught my eye—Karen.
An interior of a restaurant | Source: Pexels
She hadn’t changed at all. Even after 20 years, the same haughty expression adorned her face, a look that had tormented me throughout my school years with her cruel taunts about my lisping and stuttering.
Suddenly, I was taken back to high school where my lisp was at its worst, making me second guess speaking.
An angry woman with folded arms | Source: Pexels
School speeches were the worst part of my entire schooling life, where girls like Karen would begin laughing from behind their hands and end up hanging off their chairs, tears streaming down their faces.
I would escape to the library and spend every free moment there, just to escape the taunts.
Teenagers taking a selfie | Source: Pexels
I remember the one incident where I was clutching my books tightly to my chest, trying to make myself smaller, trying to blend into the gray of the lockers as Karen navigated the sea of students, in her impossibly high heels.
I could feel Karen’s gaze like a spotlight, singling me out from the crowd.
A row of gray lockers | Source: Pexels
“There’s Lisp-Lily, boys!” Karen’s voice boomed, drawing a circle of laughter around me.
“Give us a smile and a speech, Lily,” she said. “Show us that stellar s-s-stutter,” she mocked, her words stretching out with malicious exaggeration.
A girl sitting on a chair | Source: Pexels
I remember wanting to cry myself to sleep that night. I sat in the kitchen with my brother, Alex, and I told him all about the events of the day and how Karen had lost it.
“You should give it back to her, Lily,” my brother said, spooning ice cream into a bowl for me.
Two bowls of ice cream | Source: Pexels
“If I could, I would,” I said. “But the moment I open my mouth, you know what happens.”
My brother went off on a tangent about how I should never allow anyone to make me feel less than myself.
“You’ve got to stand up for yourself,” he said.
A smiling young man | Source: Pexels
And I did. In my own way.
Click here to find out what happened next.
Leave a Reply