Elizabeth Alice "Ali" MacGraw (born April 1, 1939) is an American actress, model, author, and animal rights activist. She first gained attention with her role in the 1969 film Goodbye, Columbus, for which she won the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer. She reached international fame in the 1970 film Love Story, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama. In 1972, MacGraw was voted the top female box office star in the world and was honored with a hands and footprints ceremony at Grauman\'s Chinese Theatre after having been in just three films. She went on to star in the popular action films The Getaway (1972) and Convoy (1978) as well as the romantic sports drama Players (1979), the comedy Just Tell Me What You Want (1980), and the historical novel-based television miniseries The Winds of War (1983). In 1991, she published an autobiography, Moving Pictures.\n', '

MacGraw was born in Pound Ridge, New York, the daughter of commercial artists Frances (née Klein; 1901–1980) and Richard MacGraw. She has one brother, Dick, an artist. Her maternal grandparents were from Budapest, Hungary, of Jewish heritage. MacGraw\'s mother chose not to disclose her ancestry to her father, instead professing ignorance about it. "I think Daddy was bigoted," MacGraw has said.\n', '

Her mother was considered a "pioneer" as an artist, who had taught school in Paris before settling in Greenwich Village. Her parents married when her mother was 40: "My gorgeous father: a combination of Tyrone Power and a mystery, a brilliant artist and a brain beyond brains." He was born in New Jersey with his childhood spent in an orphanage. He ran away to sea when he was 16 and studied art in Munich. MacGraw adds, "Daddy was frightened and really, really angry. He never forgave his real parents for giving him up." As an adult, he constantly suppressed the rage he built up against his parents. She described her father as "violent".\n', '

Return to Ali MacGraw Autograph Profile