Ali MacGraw

Posted on by Tony CrawleyCategories:Actors
  1. Joan Delaney, The President’s Analyst, 1967.    In “a  general cattle call,” Ali recognised other models she had booked in her days as stylist for fashion photographer Melvin Sokolsky.
  2. Candice Bergen, The Adventurers, 1970.  She wed Paramount boss Robert  Evans after her debut, Goodbye Columbus, which led to their Love Story. Hating Hollywood at first, she refused everything he offered including “the biggest picture we’re making this year.”  Biggest flop, that was. UK director Lewis Gilbert (better at James Bondage) agreeed with the general consensus that his film was… terrible.  Bergen had one of the best lines: “This is really humiliating.” Writer Harold Robbins based the role upon the poor little rich girl, Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton and the hero on one of her seven husbands, Porfirio Rubirosa. the Dominican diplomat-playboy with a famously massive penis. (Paris waiters named their giant pepper-grinders, Rubirosas, after it).
  3. Diane Keaton, The Godfather, 1971.
  4. Diana Rigg, The Hospital, 1971. For the first time in his (eventual) 30 screen- writing gigs, Paddy Chayefsky has total control of his work.  He was the writer, producer and, indeed, the opening narrator for a blistering take on not merely the US medical services but the divided nation of the 60s.  UA wanted Bergen, Jane Fonda or Ali MacGraw as The Girl. Paddy did not. He signed Mrs Emma Peel/Mrs James Bond.
  5. Mia Farrow, The Great Gatsby, 1973.  Among the final five Daisy Buchanans with   Farrow, Candice Bergen, Lois Chiles, Katharine Ross…  “Is everybody  crazy?” said producer David Merrick. “We [can] have Ali McGraw and Steve McQueen working for nothing. And we’re ending up with  Mia Farrow?” Producer Robert Evans had bought the rights as Ali’s wedding present, after he made her a star in  Goodbye, Columbus.  Their Love Story on and off-screen imploded when he let  her make (a literal) Getaway with McQueen in 1971. And so she lost the roles Evans was prepping for her.   Daisy Buchanan and…
  6. Faye Dunaway, Chinatown, 1973. …Evelyn Mulwray. “She’s my daughter… She’s my sister… She’s my daughter. My sister, my daughter. She’s my sister and my daughter.”
  7. Kathleen Lloyd The Missouri Breaks, 1975,    The McQueens were  invited, but the marriage was already headed to a 1977 divorce. Bob Rafelson handed the project to Arthur Penn… who clearly  had no idea what to do with it.  Nor did Marlon Brando and Nicholson.
  8. Jill  Clayburgh, Gable and Lombard,  1976.     Somehow  the old stars were seen as the McQueens –  again.  They had already been offered to Steve  and  his first wife, Neile Adams, in 1965.
  9. Julie Christie, Heaven Can Wait,  1977.    OK, their marriage was headed to a 1977 divorce, but when Warren Beatty’s  offer came up,  McQueen wouldn’t let Ali in touching distance  of such a lothario.
  10. Sondra Locke, The Gauntlet, 1977.    Hard to imagine even Marlon Brando coming close to Clint’s alcoholic cop – dispatched to Vegas to bring a hooker witness back to Phoenix. No way, says the Mafia army… That was Plan A: Mumbles and Barbra Streisand. Plan B: Steve McQueen and Streisand. (They didn’t gell at all). Plan C: Kris Kristofferson and McGraw (Mrs McQueen!) for Sam Peckinpah. Plan D: Clint and La Barb – she’d brought him the script.  But she wanted songs. He bought her out for Plan E: Clint and his lady, Sondra Locke… in the first cop art helmed by Clint. Classic Eastwood, said Roger Ebert. “Fast, furious, funny.” And totally shoot-out preposterous!

  11. Lesley Anne Down,  The Betsy, 1978.     The McQueens had  choice of roles – in almost anything!
  12. Bibi Andersson, An Enemy of the People, 1978.    Then, the double McMarriage  broke up…  before the film did likewise
  13. Isabelle Huppert, Heaven’s Gate, 1980.    The McQueens were no more, and  Steve, himself,  was dead, when the 1973 offer of The Johnson County War turned into Ciminogate: Heaven’s Gate.
  14. Jane Seymour, War and Remembrance, TV, 1986.    Ali starred in the first season marathon: 1,785 scenes, 285 speaking parts, 206 shooting days on 404 Us and European locations during 14 month !  She then  but passed her Natalie Jastrow character to the British Seymour for the sequel production. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls:  14