Love Story... reunited 50 years later
IT was the ultimate tear- jerker which won the pair millions of sobbing fans around the world.
And now, some 50 years after its release, the stars of the hit movie Love Story – Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw – reveal they still have the “chemistry” captured in the film.
Speaking of their enduring connection, twice- married O’Neal, 79, joked: “It’s been a fast 50. I don’t have those relationships with my wives.” The movie tells the tale of a doomed and unlikely romance between wealthy Harvard student Oliver Barrett and the middle- class free- spirited Jenny Cavilleri, who is studying at Radcliffe College.
Romance leads to marriage, but the film ends in tragedy when Jenny dies of an unnamed illness, leaving Oliver alone and devastated.
In an interview for Town & Country magazine, O’Neal said the powerful acting by MacGraw, now 81, as she portrayed the death of Jenny, had deeply affected him as they shot it.
“It all caught fire for me there,” he explained. “She put her arm around my head, my hair. I couldn’t stop crying. I loved her. I knew this would soon be over.” Love Story proved
to be a box office smash, earning £ 100million ($ 130million) and seven Oscar nominations.
Two years after it was released MacGraw was named the top female box office star in the world.
She went on to star in Convoy and The Winds of War. O’Neal also enjoyed a successful acting career, with roles in A Bridge Too Far and The Champ.