Ali MacGraw Has Remained Stunning Into Her Eighties

Nov 14, 2020

Many of us draw inspiration from celebrities. At 81 years old, Ali MacGraw is the epitome of timeless beauty, and her life was anything but ordinary. From working at a high-end magazine as an editor to three marriages ending in divorce, here is a glimpse into the life of the former actress who now spends her days living what seems like a beautiful life with newfound tranquility. MacGraw will turn 82 this coming April.

Ali MacGraw was born on April 1st in 1939, April Fool’s Day, making her currently 81 years old. According to her biography, her parents were artists, and she was en-route to an art career of her own at Wellesley College. MacGraw’s mother was Jewish. Her mother had kept her ancestry hidden from MacGraw’s father who was suspected to be anti-semitic.

She recounted her childhood in an interview with Vanity Fair in 2010, and described her old family life as “horrible.” Together with her brother and her parents, MacGraw lived in a doorless house on a Pound Ridge wilderness preserve with an elderly couple with whom they had to share the kitchen and bathroom. Her mother, Frances, supported them with commercial-art assignments, which made her father — “the real artist,” according to her mother — feel emasculated as he never sold any of his paintings.

“On good days he was great, but on bad days he was horrendous,” MacGraw recalled of her father. MacGraw would consciously try to be the mediator and peacemaker in her family, saying she “put all [her] energy into trying to correct the chaos in their life.”

She landed the coveted role of assistant editor at Harper’s Bazaar after graduation where she made $54 a week and went on to work as a photographer’s assistant. It was during her stint as a photographer’s assistant that she was headhunted to be a model herself after somebody at her work decided she was far too beautiful to be kept hidden behind the lens. MacGraw started fronting magazines and TV commercials worldwide, one of her more notable works being the beach girl in the Polaroid Swinger camera ads during the 1960s. 

Fashion designer Calvin Klein labeled MacGraw as a fashion icon. “She exemplified this great American style,” Klein said. “In the beginning, there was that rich-hippie period. But it went beyond that, and her style put her among the greats: Katharine Hepburn, Jackie Onassis, C. Z. Guest, Babe Paley.”

Not long after, MacGraw burst into the film industry, starring in the 1969 movie, Goodbye, Columbus, her movie debut. Her work in the film earned her the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer. She went on to star in numerous other movies that became classics like The Great Gatsby (1974).

Things were going well for MacGraw until her divorce from Steve McQueen, with whom she had her third marriage. According to Vanity Fair, MacGraw did not receive “a dime’s worth of settlement” from the divorce. MacGraw underwent drug rehabilitation at the Betty Ford Center in 1986, which she describes to be her salvation.

“My stay there was the most terrifying and life-changing experience I’ve ever had,” she said. “The single biggest thing that happened to me was my newfound certainty that there is a higher power. And I began to feel an underlying peace and sense of order that I had yearned for forever.”

In an interview in 2017, MacGraw talks about how living “in a community that is small and with many causes that need help” fills her days as she no longer does acting work. She also devotes her time to volunteering for animal welfare causes and has maybe gotten a bit too devoted, saying: “I have to restrain myself from bringing home any more strays." She has been living in her “little cottage” in Santa Fe, New Mexico for almost 28 years now.

When she turned the big 70 in 2010, she told Vanity Fair that almost every man from her past called her up.

“That’s another thing that getting older really cements: ex-lover, ex-husband, child, girlfriends, gay friends — that gaggle of human beings is a gift. Time is really precious now. I have too many books I haven’t read and too much music I haven’t listened to and too many long-distance phone calls with people I don’t get to see. So I get up very early, at 6:30. I am disciplined, in many ways. And — this will sound Pollyanna-ish — but gratitude is where I start.”

According to AARP, her current days are a routine of tranquil activities which begins before sunrise. She is surrounded by her animals, often does pilates, yoga, and goes on a walk everyday which she says is her “meditation.” She also dedicates “45 minutes of gratitude for all [she has] been given.” Her third marriage and divorce proved more than enough for MacGraw, who has remained unmarried since 1978 and who has allegedly made peace with it.

“I have wonderful people in my life,” she said. “And I feel incredibly blessed.”

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