Love Story-
A half-century after the release of their iconic film, the actors look back—and still aren’t saying they’re sorry.
The following written content by Amy Nicholson
What can you say about a film that refuses to die?
When Love Story, the tale of a doomed romance between Ivy League students Oliver, a rich preppy, and Jenny, a spirited social zero, went from a slender paperback to an unexpected box-office smash despite a downbeat ending where Jenny dies of, well, something. In 1970, it was received with sniffles, snickers, and seven Oscar nominations. A cathartic respite for a country in chaos, the little-tear-jerker-that-could took in more than $130 million worldwide, rescuing Paramount Pictures from financial disaster. Sure, critics poked fun at its naivete, but even Kurt Vonnegut once admitted to Harvard’s Signet Society that criticizing Love Story was like “criticizing a chocolate eclair.”
Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neal in a promotional shot from their hit movie Love Story, was which released 50 years ago this month.ALAMY
Five decades later, the film has proven more durable than its own fictional marriage, and leads Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw are now celebrating the golden anniversary of the movie that made them overnight stars and forever linked them in the public eye. “It’s been a fast 50,” says O’Neal. “I don’t have those relationships with my wives!”
Both actors were Hollywood novices when Love Storycame around. MacGraw was hunting for the perfect follow up to Goodbye, Columbus, a bittersweet romantic drama that had won her a Golden Globe for New Star of the Year, and after rejecting several roles, she finally read the script for Love Story.
Like Jenny, MacGraw was a sharp-tongued smarty pants who’d attended Wellesleyon a scholarship. “We share the same energy,” she says. Back in college, MacGraw had even known author Erich Segal when they appeared together in a college production of All’s Well That Ends Well. Despite this familiarity, Love Story caught her off-guard. “I cried, and I thought I was crazy,” says MacGraw, then she immediately read it again, elbowed her husband-to-be, Paramount producer Robert Evans, and convinced him she’d found her next part. Read more from Town & Country.
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