Ali MacGraw became a Hollywood sensation almost overnight. But after rising quickly to international fame, she stepped away from the industry just as fast, choosing a quieter path away from constant attention.
Now 85, the actress has built a calm life in a remote, small town, embracing aging naturally and wearing her gray hair with confidence.
Ali MacGraw’s early life
Ali MacGraw, born Elizabeth Alice MacGraw, arrived on April 1, 1939, in Pound Ridge, New York, USA. Her mother, Frances, was an artist who once worked at a school in Paris before later settling in Greenwich Village. She married Richard MacGraw, also an artist, and the couple welcomed Ali that same year.
Ali later suggested that her father carried painful scars from his own childhood. He had endured a harsh upbringing in an orphanage, ran away at 16 to go to sea, and later studied at an art school in Munich, Germany.
“Daddy was frightened and really, really angry. He never forgave his real parents for giving him up,” Ali explained, saying his adult life was spent “suppressing the rage that covered all his hurt.”
Growing up with financial strain and family tension
Money was tight in the household. Frances and Richard, along with Ali and her brother Richard Jr., moved into a house on a Pound Ridge wilderness preserve, sharing it with an elderly couple.
“There were no doors; we shared the kitchen and bathroom with them,” Ali said. “It was utter lack of privacy. It was horrible.”
Frances kept the family afloat through commercial-art work. Richard struggled to sell his paintings, grew increasingly frustrated, and the home environment became difficult. Ali later recalled that her brother often became the target of their father’s anger, and she witnessed painful moments that stayed with her.
Education and the move into fashion
As the daughter of artists, Ali felt pulled toward a creative life of her own. She earned a scholarship to Rosemary Hall, and in 1956, she left to study at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.
By 22, she moved to New York City and landed her first job at Harper’s Bazaar as an assistant editor, supporting photographers and working behind the scenes.
Fashion editor Diana Vreeland hired Ali in a demanding assistant role that Ali later compared to the kind of high-pressure atmosphere people recognize from movies about fashion.
“It was ‘Girl! Get me a pencil!’,” MacGraw recalled.
After several months, fashion photographer Melvin Sokolsky noticed her striking look. Ali was hired as a stylist, received a better salary, and stayed in that position for six years.
“I don’t know where she got this work ethic, but Ali would come in at eight a.m., and many times I’d come back at one in the morning and she would still be doing things for the next day,” recalled Ruth Ansel, a former art director at Vanity Fair and Harper’s Bazaar.
Ali’s success behind the camera eventually turned into modeling opportunities. She appeared on magazine covers around the world and in television commercials. From there, her career shifted toward acting.
A strange experience also helped clarify what she wanted next: she had been sketched nude by Salvador Dalí a couple of years earlier, but when the artist began sucking her toes, MacGraw decided she’d rather pursue acting than remain in the modeling world.
A rapid rise in Hollywood
Ali moved from fashion into film with surprising speed. Her lack of formal training gave her performances a raw, natural quality, and audiences responded strongly to her presence.
After a small role in A Lovely Way to Die (1968), she was cast in Goodbye, Columbus (1969). The role proved pivotal, earning her a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer – Female.
Love Story and a defining breakthrough
Soon after, she received a script from her agent that affected her deeply. She later said she cried twice while reading it and knew she had to be part of the project. Determined to secure the role, she arranged a meeting with producer Robert Evans, who was then Paramount Pictures’ head of production, at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel. Evans thought she was perfect for the part in Love Story, and he fell for her personally as well.
MacGraw starred as Jenny opposite Ryan O’Neal in the film. Love Story premiered in 1970, became the No. 1 film in the United States, and at the time ranked as the sixth highest-grossing movie in history in the US and Canada.
Ali’s performance earned her an Academy Award nomination, and she won a second Golden Globe, this time for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama.
Marriage to Robert Evans and the shift to Steve McQueen
MacGraw and Evans married in 1969, and two years later welcomed their son, Josh Evans.
But as Ali became one of the hottest stars of the 1970s, her private life began to fracture. Actor Steve McQueen visited their home to ask her to star alongside him in The Getaway, and the connection between them was immediate.
“I looked in those blue eyes, and my knees started knocking,” MacGraw recalled. “I became obsessed.”
MacGraw and McQueen began an affair, and she eventually left Evans to live with McQueen in Malibu, bringing Josh with her.
“Steve was this very original, principled guy who didn’t seem to be part of the system, and I loved that,” she said.
A difficult marriage and the 1978 divorce
Over time, Ali said she realized McQueen carried deep damage from his own early life. After his father abandoned his mother, McQueen was sent at 14 to a school for delinquent children, and MacGraw believed it shaped his ability to trust women.
She also said he disliked her independence and career. For a period, Ali stayed home to raise their sons, but she eventually found his expectations impossible to accept. She described a relationship marked by jealousy and control, including intense reactions if she so much as looked at another man.
McQueen also asked her to sign a prenuptial agreement stating she would not seek anything in the event of divorce. When they divorced in 1978, she honored the agreement.
“I couldn’t even go to art class because Steve expected his ‘old lady’ to be there every night with dinner on the table,” she recalled.
She also said his type of “hot” wasn’t her and that other women were often around him.
A darker period and stepping back from Hollywood
MacGraw later described the late 1970s as a troubling time. While filming Convoy (1978), she admitted she arrived on set drunk and high, which prompted her to quit drugs.
At the same time, several projects underperformed, including Players (1970) and Just Tell Me What You Want (1980).
“It’s brutal for women,” MacGraw told The Guardian about returning to show business in the late 1970s.
“I don’t think there’s a woman over 40 who’s ever been conspicuously in the spotlight who doesn’t get sick of the kind of questioning the media lays on you, the fashion industry, all of it. It’s cruel.”
Although her period as a major movie star was relatively brief, she didn’t completely walk away at first. She shifted into interior design and still took some roles, including the TV miniseries The Winds of War (1983) and China Rose (1985).
But she said work became harder to find, and she began to feel worthless. She also admitted she struggled emotionally when she wasn’t in a relationship, describing love like “a drug high.” Feeling alone, she drank heavily.
In 1986, she checked into the Betty Ford Clinic in California.
“The worst stuff happened when I drank,” she said. “I lost my judgment; I fancied other women’s husbands.”
Her son Josh was 15 at the time, and she later acknowledged how hard it was for him to see her in that condition. MacGraw spent 30 days in group therapy and came out stronger.
A wildfire, a move, and a new life in New Mexico
In 1993, her home in California burned down in a wildfire. After that, she left Los Angeles and relocated near Santa Fe, New Mexico.
“I live in a little village north of Santa Fe, New Mexico called Tesuque,” she later revealed.
She said her neighbors don’t treat her like a former Hollywood celebrity. Instead, they value her for her community involvement, including volunteer work at the annual International Folk Art Market in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
A brief return to the stage
MacGraw largely stayed out of the spotlight in the decades that followed, but she returned to the stage in 2006, reuniting with Ryan O’Neal in the Broadway adaptation of the Danish film Festen.
Outside of that, she has focused on animal rights advocacy and produced successful yoga videos. Speaking to the Herald-Tribune in 2019, she said she remained open to new experiences and emphasized how important creativity still is to her.
“One of the lucky things for someone my age is that I’m open and curious,” MacGraw said. “There’s not just one thing I love to do and feel bereft if I can’t. But I know that I’m not happy when I’m not doing something creative.”
Josh Evans: continuing the family’s Hollywood link
Although Ali stepped away from acting, her family remained connected to the industry. Her son Josh Evans became an actor and director and built a respected career in Hollywood—while also drawing frequent comments about how much he resembles his mother.
Born in January 1971, Josh grew up with the pressure of being the child of two well-known figures: Robert Evans and Ali MacGraw. Even so, he gravitated toward entertainment early, although acting wasn’t his original dream. He later described it as something that happened rather than something he carefully planned.
In 1989, he had a small role in Dream a Little Dream (1989), but he wanted more. As a teenager, he would go to a manager’s office to read breakdowns for films in production, trying to find opportunities.
That effort eventually connected him with director Oliver Stone, who was making Born on the Fourth of July, starring Tom Cruise. Josh pushed for a meeting.
“At the time I just knew [Oliver Stone] from Platoon. He was making a movie with Tom Cruise and there was a role for the little brother. I wanted to play that part, so he got me a meeting with Oliver Stone,” Josh Evans recalled.
“When I sat with him, Oliver asked ‘Oh, you think you look like Tom Cruise?’. Now knowing him, I realize he was mocking me, but I said, ‘Yeah, I do.’ So, he said, ‘We’ll see what happens.’ Four months later, I got a call to audition and I got the part. It was very exciting and you could feel how special that movie was going to be.”
Josh later appeared in The Doors (1991) and continued working both in front of and behind the camera. With eight films as a director, he also worked with Michael Madsen, who starred in Josh’s 2015 film Death in the Desert.
“I am definitely more comfortable on the side of the camera that does not show myself,” Josh Evans said.
“If an interesting opportunity presents itself, I am not opposed to it. I think there are other people out there who are more qualified and want it more than I do. As far as directing and telling my stories, I would do that for free, whereas acting is more of a job, but I enjoy it once I do it.”
Later family milestones
In 2019, Josh’s father—Ali’s ex-husband—Robert Evans died. The family also shared an earlier milestone when Evans received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2012.
Josh has been married twice. In October 2012, he married American singer and musician Roxy Saint. By then, their son Jackson was two years old, and Ali has spoken warmly about how much she loves being with her family.
— roxysaint (@roxysaint) October 30, 2019
“He’s so wonderful,” MacGraw said about her son. “He’s my favorite human being on the planet, and he goes out with a girl I’m nuts about. Their relationship is so much about, among other things, friendship and respect.”
From early hardship to sudden fame, personal turmoil, and eventual reinvention, Ali MacGraw’s story is one of transformation. Today, she lives far from Hollywood’s noise, grounded in community and creativity—while her son continues the family’s legacy in film.
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