But now, years later, she finds truth in it: "Saying sorry isn't what it's about. "So that's a blessing," she jokes.Īs for Love Story's very famous, oft-ridiculed line, "Love means never having to say you're sorry," even MacGraw says she didn't know what it meant at the time. We've now been married for 50 years." Phillips says her husband doesn't remember any of this. "I read it to my boyfriend at the time, read it out loud to him, sobbing through the whole thing. "I remember when I read it, of course dissolving in tears," says Phillips. Phillips, who was in her early 20s when the book and movie came out, also recalls the sobs. Some years later, Segal said he modeled Oliver after Watergate investigator Terry Lenzner.īestselling romance writer Susan Elizabeth Phillips says just about everyone she knew saw the movie after first reading the book. Segal got to know both men when they were all students at Harvard together. Segal said Oliver was partly modeled after Al Gore, but mostly after Tommy Lee Jones (who also has a part in the movie). The inspiration for Oliver has been the source of intrigue and even controversy. Oliver Barrett IV, played by Ryan O'Neal in the movie, is a sensitive, rich kid and a Harvard hockey player. The idea came when he learned that one of his former students was just 25 when he lost his wife to cancer. The 50th anniversary edition of the novel Love Story includes an introduction by Francesca.Įrich Segal was 30 years old and a professor at Yale when he wrote the 131-page Love Story.
It was "genuine and earnest and I think it just struck a chord," she says. In December, 1970, in the midst of the Vietnam War and the continuing fight for Civil Rights - along came an "unabashedly sentimental" story "about the power of love," says Segal's daughter, writer Francesca Segal. "What can you say about a 25-year-old girl who dies?" So begins the novel and screenplay, both written by Erich Segal. Love Story, the romantic tearjerker starring Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw, broke box office records and the book it was based on was a bestseller that was translated into more than 30 languages. Since then, it has inspired countless ugly cries - and plenty of parodies, too.įifty years ago, a simple but tragic love story became a global sensation that stunned the entertainment industry. Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw starred in Love Story - a romantic tearjerker that became the highest grossing movie of 1970.
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