Ali McGraw is an award-winning actress known for her role in “Goodbye, Columbus,” which earned her a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer.
Ali McGraw attended Wellesley College, where she studied art history. Following graduation, she worked on fashion magazines, and her interest in fashion photography landed her in the modeling industry.
She maintained the profession until 1968 when she made a late start in an occasional acting career. McGraw is well-known for successful films such as “Love Story” and “Convoy and Players.”
The activist was born Elizabeth Alice McGraw in April 1939 in Pound Ridge, New York, and she has a younger brother named Dick McGraw. McGraw came from a low-income family that lived in a small apartment. She explained once:
“There were no doors. We shared the kitchen and bathroom with them. It was an utter lack of privacy. It was horrible.”
The 83-year-old moved to New York after graduating in 1960, where she bagged a job as an assistant at Harper’s Bazaar and earned $54 a week. “The Getaway” star had hopes of becoming a stylist.
Six months within her job, fashion designer Melvin Sokolsky stopped by Harper’s Bazaar and saw McGraw. He hired her right away, a job offer that came with a better salary.
The elated McGraw told Vanity Fair, “I was thrilled to be a stylist,” mainly because that opportunity afforded her the chance to launch her modeling career.
Moreover, although McGraw never had the proper training to become an actress, she had acting lessons with a fellow model, and that’s when she got cast in “Goodbye, Columbus.”
Her acting career had begun, and she became an “it” girl while basking in the success of her most popular 1970 movie “Love Story.”
In her real-life love story, McGraw has been married three times, and all her unions ended in divorce. In 1961, the “Glam” star wed her college sweetheart, Robin Hoen, but the pair divorced a year and a half later as she was at “the age where it’s too exciting for marriages,” said McGraw.
The Hollywood leading lady married her second husband, legendary producer Robert Evans in 1971 and gave birth to their only son Josh Evans, now-52, in that same year.
She and Evans parted ways two years later after she began a public affair with screen icon Steve McQueen. The twosome met on a blind date, but he was a ladies’ man during that time.
After five years of marriage, the couple called it quits and officially divorced in 1978. McGraw said she felt safe with McQueen and that it was easy to be a family with him despite their separation because they looked like cousins.
She had left Evans to start her tumultuous relationship with McQueen. McGraw admitted there were many good times in their marriage and some bad times:
“There were many times that were just wonderful, and there were many times that were just ghastly.”
McQueen had cheated on the style icon multiple times, verbally abused her, and never trusted her. According to The Times, his mood swings were unpredictable and violent. McGraw even gave up her flourishing career for him when they married.
“He didn’t say I couldn’t work, but it was pretty obvious, she told The Times in September 2017. Three years after their divorce, McQueen died of cancer.
Getting candid on all three of her failed marriages during a conversation with Oprah Winfrey for “Super Soul Sunday,” McGraw stated they all ended for the same reason, she never really said who she was:
“I thought if I say that, he’s going to leave me.”
It was because she believed that her ex-husbands would read her mind and know what she needed or wanted without expressing it.
For the mere fact that McGraw failed to express or allow her true self to show, her relationships fell apart quickly, and because she married many times, she said it was because of her arrogance.
After saying ‘I do’ three times, the mother of one never married again and instead centered her focus on being the best parent, she could be for her only child, Josh.
