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.