Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw star in national tour of ‘Love Letters.’
From “Love Story” to “Love Letters,” Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neal have been romantically linked for the past 45 years. At least on the screen and the stage.
It was 1970 when they steamed up movie theaters in the big screen adaptation of Erich Segal’s tear-jerking novel about a working-class girl with a terminal disease and the Boston Brahmin preppie who loved her, despite his family’s disapproval. “Love Story” was the year’s top fifilm at the domestic box offiffice, pulling in $106 million as well as Oscar nominations for MacGraw and O’Neal.
The novel and movie popularized the faux-profound catch phrase, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” the mention of which brings giggles over the telephone from the love couple.
“We had no idea that it was going to become a classic line,” says O’Neal. “Then people would ask us what it meant. How dare they.”
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30-$70 954-462-0222 together again on fifilm or in a play before, but all it took was a phone offffffffffffer. “I asked, ‘Is Ali doing it?’,” remembers O’Neal. “They said, ‘Yes,’ and I said, ‘So, let’s go.’ “
“Love Letters” tracks two lifelong friends and potential lovers from kindergarten to old age, as seen through their correspondence — letters, thank you notes, holiday cards and other missives — to each other. Gurney specififically designed the script to be performed as a reading, in part to lure busy celebrities like O’Neal and MacGraw who have no time or inclination to rehearse or memorize.
The lack of memorization was a distinct lure for MacGraw. “I have a really tough time memorizing lines. It’s so petrifying. I had a very small part in ‘Festen’ with very accomplished actors,” she says, recalling her 2006 Broadway debut in a shortlived ensemble drama. “And they were whipping through their dialogue, and I was embarrassed and frightened witless.”
O’Neal, sensing his co-star heading toward an unpleasant memory, steers the conversation in a lighter direction. “Maybe we’ll do another play after this and we’ll just read it,” he suggests.
“Y’know what I was hoping?,” asks MacGraw, picking up on O’Neal’s comic riffff. “I was hoping that ‘The Artist,’ that fabulous silent movie, would be done as a play.”
“Yes, a silent play,” he readily agrees. “What a funny idea, we’ll go on the road with a silent play.”
Both stars have substantial fifilm résumés, but neither has done much stage work. O’Neal, 74, fifirst rose to prominence in 1964 on the television series “Peyton Place,” and headlined such movies as “Paper Moon” with his Oscar-winning daughter Tatum, “What’s Up, Doc?” and the prestige period fifilm, “Barry Lyndon.” For the past decade, he has appeared on TV’s “Bones” and has a small supporting role in Terrence Malick’s next release, “Knight of Cups.”
“I can’t talk about it,
daughter to Paris to watch the fifinal stage of the 2003 Tour.
Lance sent me an email. He liked my story. His agent, Bill Stapleton, also called and several other of Armstrong’s associates. I framed the email. My daughter and I flflew to Paris and stood on the Champs Elysees and watched Lance win.
I got on with my life but every July, for three weeks, I watched the Tour.
Last year, I lost my faith in Armstrong – a lying, cheating, self-absorbed prima donna who doped his way to the podium in Paris.
My anger at Armstrong’s deception turned to sorrow for Armstrong’s oldest son, Luke — the toddler whom I watched on the podium with his father. The boy is now a teen, forever saddled with the legacy of a father known as the greatest cheater in the history of sports.
And my heart broke for the second-place fifinishers, whose names no one recalls, who would have won the Tour if Armstrong had not robbed them of the glory, wealth and prestige that comes with winning the world’s most grueling athletic event.
Despite my loss and disappointment, one thing remains unchanged: I love the Tour de France, the epic, three-week-long, 2,000-plus mile race through some of the most stunning and challenging terrain on the planet.
I watch the tour now because I love the tour. I have no ulterior motives. I am not looking for the tour to fulfifill some deep emotional need. It is a bike race.
I might have learned to love the tour despite Lance and my parents’ cancers because to me, the bicycle is a divine machine. What other human invention do we all have in common? Not the automobile. Not the phone. Not the Internet.
But nearly every human being will at some point ride a bike. Whether it is a hedge-fund manager on a custom- made Pinarello or a crack dealer on a Schwinn, we all ride. Likewise, anyone can get a front-row seat at the tour. It costs nothing. There are no tickets. You simply walk to the curb.
I am going back to the Champs Elysees to watch the fifinal stage of the tour again this year. I am going as a spectator, not a daughter mourning her parents’ deaths. I’m not in search of a miracle. I’m going because I love the tour — an amazing, beautiful race that celebrates unfathomable human will, breathtaking landscapes and one of the rare memories we all share: riding a bike.