Love story
Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw look back on their cult film
Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw in "Love Story"
© imago / Cinema Publishers Collection
It's been 50 years since "Love Story" was released. Leading actors Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw look back.
With their 1970 film "Love Story", the two US actors Ryan O'Neal (79) and Ali MacGraw (81) are a kind of everlasting couple for the public. The melodrama about a tragic relationship became one of the most successful films of the 1970s. In an interview with Town & Country magazine, O'Neal and MacGraw look back on the past 50 years.
"It's been a quick 50 years," explains O'Neal, joking that he "didn't have such a relationship with my wives." The actor was married twice in the 1960s and 1970s, but both marriages were divorced. MacGraw, meanwhile, recalls that she was very similar to her character: "We share the same energy."
A passionate kiss
The film is based on the book of the same name by the author Erich Segal, who died in 2010. "I cried and I thought I was crazy," MacGraw thought when she first read the story. Then she read the whole thing again directly and convinced her future husband, the film producer Robert Evans (1930-2019), to whom she was only married for a few years, that she had found her next role. O'Neal was then chosen as a co-star of MacGraw from among 1,000 candidates.
A kiss between the two at the audition was so passionate that the actor was sure he would get the role. However, a friend later told him that his future film partner had kissed everyone like that at the casting. According to O'Neal, the "chemistry" between the two still exists 50 years later.
The phrase "love means never having to ask for forgiveness" by MacGraw's character Jenny Cavilleri has haunted fans for decades, although she does not attach any importance to this personally. "I've learned that we can make bad mistakes with people we love," explains the actress. The truth is, you should just not repeat mistakes and try to relieve your partner's pain from possible injury.