"Love Story" 50 yrs. " Where do I begin, To tell the story of how great a love can be"...

[Budi]

The story.
How it came to be written.
The unexpected impact on a generation of 1970.

https://www.npr.org/2020/12/22/948655542/successful-sentimental-and-satirized-love-story-celebrates-50th-anniversary

Successful, Sentimental And Satirized, 'Love Story' Celebrates 50th Anniversary
December 22, 2020


Fifty years ago, a simple but tragic love story became a global sensation that stunned the entertainment industry.
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.

"What can you say about a 25-year-old girl who dies?" So begins the novel and screenplay, both written by Erich Segal.

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. It was "genuine and earnest and I think it just struck a chord," she says. The 50th anniversary edition of the novel Love Story includes an introduction by Francesca.

Erich Segal was 30 years old and a professor at Yale when he wrote the 131-page Love Story. The idea came when he learned that one of his former students was just 25 when he lost his wife to cancer.
Oliver Barrett IV, played by Ryan O'Neal in the movie, is a sensitive, rich kid and a Harvard hockey player. The inspiration for Oliver has been the source of intrigue and even controversy. Segal said Oliver was partly modeled after Al Gore, but mostly after Tommy Lee Jones (who also has a part in the movie).

SNIP

They were gorgeous to look at as they frolic in the snow, argue, fall deeply in love and marry, despite the disapproval of Oliver's father. Just as they start a new life together, Jenny learns she has a fatal blood disease and dies. (Only in the book is the disease identified as leukemia.)

"It was cliché, but it worked," says Ali MacGraw. "And everybody was completely flabbergasted when it had the reception that it had, which was right away," she remembers.


MORE....
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Well written tribute to the author & the story he wrote.
A Worthy Read....

[Croney]

1. When I moved in 1972 to the Cambridge street where it had been filmed,

the house and corner store were still tourist attractions. It's still hard to drive down Oxford Street without picking up the earworm.

[CrispyQ]

2. "Love means never having to say you're sorry."

What a crock of shit.

I saw the movie when I was a teen & that phrase didn't mean much to me at the time, although it stuck in my head. Years later I remembered it & realized how untrue the phrase is.

[Budi]

3. LOL..McGraw addresses that line: "she didn't know what it meant at the time. "

As 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. But now, years later, she finds truth in it: "Saying sorry isn't what it's about. It's about really feeling badly for the hurt ... and then absolutely trying never to do it again. So there's a lot of work more than, 'Gee, I'm sorry,' and then scooting outside to get on your bike and ride into the fall leaves or whatever."

Still, MacGraw wishes she'd asked about the meaning 50 years ago during filming: "It's an insane line. But I said it. And I live with it!"

(It's just a love story)

[milestogo]

10. Stupidest comment about love ever made.

[Paladin]

4. Cheesy movie, but it got me laid in college. I remain grateful. (nt)

[Budi]

5. Suddenly we were all Ali McGraw searching for our Preppie bf.

I think with all the disturbing turmoil surrounding our coming of age, maybe Love Story was more of a human necessity.

[Paladin]

6. "Love means never having to say you're sorry."

I guess that sounded profound and true when we were children. I'm approaching 50 years of marriage now, and I know for a fact that love means having to say you're sorry, many many times. You know who never ever says he's sorry? donald trump.

[Budi]

11. Lol.. boy that's the truth. Over & over & over. But Not Trump. Nope

He has never been sorry for anything, ever.

[gratuitous]

7. A friend went to Michigan in the mid-70s

Back in those days, of course, there wasn't any cable or streaming videos. But "Love Story" was on broadcast TV, and a large portion of his dorm gathered in the lounge to watch the movie on a small TV set in the dark. As Ali McGraw's character was deteriorating to her inevitable demise, you could hear sniffs and choked sobs in the dark. When she invites Ryan O'Neal to get in her hospital bed with her, someone in the room (my friend swears is was NOT him) piped up with "Are you contagious?" Followed by a weepy female voice, "Oh, you asshole!"

[Paladin]

8. I bet THAT guy didn't get lucky! (nt)

[gratuitous]

9. Or maybe he did in a back-handed way

I know that I had a couple of crushes in college that, in retrospect, I'm really glad never came to fruition.

[Paladin]

12. I had the same sort of experiences, if memory serves. (nt)

[malaise]

13. I wept and wept and wept

after reading the book and watching the movie