Once upon a time, this woman was the epit­o­me of Hol­ly­wood beau­ty. Her face graced count­less mag­a­zines, her smile lit up the sil­ver screen, and fans couldn’t get enough of her. Fast for­ward to today, and at 85, she has trans­formed in ways that make her almost unrec­og­niz­able

Ali Mac­Graw, 86, Steps Out in New York City, 55 Years After Love Sto­ry. The beloved actress hit the sun­ny New York City streets in a chic black suit

Ali Mac­Graw in 1970 and in Feb­ru­ary 2025.

Ali MacGraw is stunning at 86!

The actress was pho­tographed on Wednes­day, Feb. 12, look­ing fan­tas­tic in a sleek black suit on the streets of New York City. Mac­Graw wore her strik­ing gray hair swept back and acces­sorized with a sim­ple black hand­bag and ele­gant kit­ten heels.

It’s hard to believe it’s been more than half a cen­tu­ry since Mac­Graw rose to fame as the star of roman­tic films like Good­bye, Colum­bus (1969) and Love Sto­ry (1970).

The actress was 30 when she won a Gold­en Globe Award for Most Promis­ing New­com­er for 1969’s Good­bye, Colum­bus. One year lat­er, she took on what is prob­a­bly her most icon­ic role as Jen­ny Cav­il­leri, a work­ing class col­lege stu­dent who falls for wealthy class­mate Oliv­er Bar­rett IV (Ryan O’Neal) in 1970’s Love Sto­ry

The film was a box office smash as well as crit­i­cal­ly well-received. MacGraw’s per­for­mance earned her anoth­er Gold­en Globe and a 1971 Acad­e­my Award nom­i­na­tion for Best Actress.

Love Sto­ry went on to become one of the high­est-gross­ing films of all time and remains a romance clas­sic. In 2021, Para­mount+ announced it was devel­op­ing a series based on the film.

As the star of the 1970 block­buster romance Love Sto­ry, Ali Mac­Graw became one of the most pop­u­lar actress­es of the era. While Love Sto­ry has often been par­o­died for its over-the-top melo­dra­ma (who can for­get the line “Love means nev­er hav­ing to say you’re sor­ry,” or the image of the actress on her deathbed while still look­ing gor­geous and per­fect­ly put togeth­er?) its icon­ic sta­tus is unde­ni­able, and it cat­a­pult­ed Mac­Graw to the A‑list.

Here’s a look at how she got her start, and what she’s been up to since leav­ing the film indus­try in the ’90s.

new­com­er at age 30

Born Eliz­a­beth Alice Mac­Graw in 1939, Ali Mac­Graw had a some­what unusu­al career path, as unlike most actress­es at the time, who start­ed out in the teens or ear­ly 20s, she was already 30 when she made her film debut in the 1969 adap­ta­tion of the nov­el Good­bye, Colum­bus.

Reflect­ing on her career in a recent New York Times fea­ture, the actress, now 85, said, “Look­ing back, it seems so strange that — overnight, at 30 — I became a ‘movie star.’ I’m relieved I got out of that often excit­ing, often ter­ri­fy­ing decade alive. I’d been work­ing since I was 14, but I hadn’t gone to school for act­ing. I was cho­sen to be in Good­bye, Colum­bus, and then every­thing explod­ed with the stu­pe­fy­ing sur­prise of Love Sto­ry — this cost-noth­ing project nobody expect­ed to be a suc­cess