40 Amazing Photographs of a Young and Beautiful Ali MacGraw in the 1970s

Ali MacGraw (born April 1, 1939) was a major style and film icon of the 1970s, best known for her roles in Love Story (1970) and The Getaway (1972). Her fresh-faced beauty, natural elegance, and bohemian-chic fashion made her a trendsetter of the decade.

Beginning in 1960, MacGraw spent six years working at Harper’s Bazaar magazine as a photographic assistant to fashion maven Diana Vreeland. She worked at Vogue magazine as a fashion model and as a photographer’s stylist. She has also worked as an interior designer.

MacGraw began her acting career in television commercials, including one for the Polaroid Swinger camera. In one commercial for International Paper, she was on a beach in a bikini made of Confil and went for a swim underwater to prove its strength and durability.

MacGraw gained widespread attention with Goodbye, Columbus (1969), her first leading role, but real stardom came when she starred opposite Ryan O’Neal in Love Story (1970), one of the highest-grossing films in U.S. history. The film, and MacGraw’s performance in particular, received widespread critical acclaim, and earned her the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama, in addition to a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Following Love Story, MacGraw was celebrated on the cover of Time.

In 1972, after appearing in just three films, she had her footprints and autograph engraved at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. She then starred opposite Steve McQueen in The Getaway (1972), which was one of the year’s top ten films at the box office. Having taken a five-year break from acting, in 1978 MacGraw re-emerged in another box office hit, Convoy (1978), opposite Kris Kristofferson. She then appeared in the films Players (1979) and Just Tell Me What You Want (1980), directed by Sidney Lumet.