Ali MacGraw Biography
Born: April 1, 1938
The daughter of artists, actress Ali MacGraw prepared for an art career of her own at Wellesley College. At 22, MacGraw entered the world of high fashion as assistant editor at Harper's Bazaar and went on to work as a photographer's assistant, at least until someone decided that her looks were far too dazzling to be kept behind the camera. Before long, she was adorning magazine covers worldwide and appearing in TV commercials (she's the beach girl in the "Polaroid Swinger" camera ads of the mid-'60s). After an unremarkable movie debut in 1968, she became a full-fledged star in 1969's Goodbye_Columbus. Perhaps no one was more impressed by MacGraw's charms than Paramount executive Robert_Evans, who fell in love with her and began guiding the destinies of her career (Evans became MacGraw's second husband in 1971). Her next film role was unquestionably the best: Jenny Cavilleri, the charmingly foul-mouthed, slowly dying heroine of the 1970 smash hit Love_Story, which earned her an Oscar nomination. Evans continued promoting MacGraw's career even after she'd left him in favor of actor Steve McQueen, whom she'd met while filming Sam_Peckinpah's The_Getaway (1973), and to whom she was married from 1973 to 1978. After losing the role of Daisy Buchanan in The_Great_Gatsby (1974) to Mia_Farrow, MacGraw took a four-year sabbatical from films. Her 1978 comeback picture was Convoy, which reunited her with Sam_Peckinpah; inspired by a CB radio craze, the film was regarded as a great step backward for all concerned. After playing Alan_King's long-suffering lady friend in Just_Tell_Me_What_You_Want, MacGraw confined her infrequent acting appearances to the small screen. She was briefly a regular as Lady Ashley Mitchell on the weekly Dynasty, and starred in the miniseries The Winds of War (1983) and China_Rose (1985). MacGraw also appeared in the TV movies Gunsmoke:_The_Long_Ride (1992), playing a character named Uncle Jane, and Natural_Causes (1994). In 1991, Ali MacGraw published -Moving Pictures, her autobiography. Hal Erickson, Rovi
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