Ali MacGraw

American actress, best known for her role in the 1970 movie Love Story. MacGraw’s performance as a college student whose romance is tragically cut short by illness earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress and catapulted her to stardom.

The daughter of artists, MacGraw attended Wellesley College where she studied art history in anticipation of launching her own art career. At age 22, she became a photographer’s assistant at Harper’s Bazaar. Her exotic looks and inviting smile eventually landed her a spot in front of the camera, and the dark-haired beauty quickly became the subject of magazine covers and television commercials worldwide.

In 1968, she undertook a minor role in the film, A Lovely Way to Die, but it was her performance in 1969’s Goodbye, Columbus that won her public notice. She followed her success with the phenomenally popular Love Story with a role in The Getaway (1972), playing opposite her soon-to-be husband, Steve McQueen. Soon afterward, she left the mainstream Hollywood, reportedly to devote time to her new marriage, but MacGraw later revealed that she was in the midst of serious personal problems as well. Although she made several more movies during the 1970s and 1980s, her career never regained the momentum it had lost, and in 1991 she became a spokesperson for a cosmetics line and released her autobiography, Moving Pictures. The book revealed her struggles with alcohol and sex addiction.

Her mentor in Hollywood, Robert Evans, became her second husband on 24 October 1969; they divorced in 1972. She then married fellow actor Steve McQueen in 1973 but in 1978, this marriage again ended in divorce. Her son, Josh Evans, is an actor.