Stars in a different type of love story
The ovation for Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal continues long and thunderously as the Academy Award-nominated stars of the 1970 movie “Love Story” take their places at a simple table where, for the next 90 minutes, they perform A. R. Gurney's “Love Letters.”
That two-character play, a story of a 50-year friendship told solely through the readings of correspondence, could hardly be more tailor-made for MacGraw and O'Neal.
Even though the lovers they portrayed on screen all those decades ago are unrelated to the equally ill-fated characters in Gurney's work, the idea of bringing them together again is enough to generate waves of nostalgia and affection. Those waves have propelled the nationwide tour of “Love Letters” that started last fall and reaches Baltimore's Hippodrome Theatre this week.
“We've been very close for 46 years,” says the silver-haired, ever-beautiful MacGraw, 77, in between bites of crisp asparagus at a Buffalo hotel's bistro. “We know each other well. It doesn't hurt.”
O'Neal, sipping on a greyhound cocktail while waiting for a BLT (hold the avocado), concurs.
“Ali's easy to digest,” says the 75-year-old actor, whose weathered face retains the handsomeness that lit up the screen. “That's not so for all women. I even gave up on Tatum.” (That would be Tatum O'Neal, an Oscar winner at age 10 for her performance alongside her father in the 1974 film “Paper Moon.” Their relationship has had its vicissitudes.)
MacGraw and O'Neal are restricted when it comes to demonstrating their chemistry in “Love Letters.” The play asks performers, sitting side by side, to avoid looking at each other until the final moments. And they are not to recite lines from memory, just read them.
It didn't take long at all, however, for these two actors to put their stamp on “Love Letters,” directed by Broadway veteran Gregory Mosher. It's O'Neal's stage debut and one of MacGraw's rare theater ventures.
They easily create viable portrayals of Andrew Makepeace Ladd III and the even richer Melissa Gardner, who exchange their first letters at the age of 7 and continue doing so as they go their separate ways through schools, careers and marriages. Romance between the two is always in the air, always complicated.
With eyes front, MacGraw and O'Neal can't be sure what the other is up to while reading or listening during the play.
“I'm sure you're doing something with your legs,” he says. “Your legs do a Dance of the Seven Veils — and your legs are up to here [he points to his chest]. So I rip my glasses off. It is stealing your thunder.”
That comment prompts an undainty laugh from MacGraw. She then contemplates ways to upstage her co-star.
“I'm going to order takeout and start eating at the table,” she says. O'Neal threatens to crawl across the stage in retaliation.
Nothing like that will happen, of course, but the MacGraw-O'Neal version of “Love Letters” can't help but be distinctive.
“I have seen an awful lot of actors do it,” says the Buffalo-born Gurney. “Each team, or each individual actor, for that matter, brings different things. Some evenings are more comic; some are more seriously concerned with the lost love affair [of Andrew and Melissa].”
Andrew could be a cousin of Oliver Barrett IV, the role O'Neal played in “Love Story,” which was based on Erich Segal's best-selling novel. The working-class Jenny Cavilleri, Oliver's soul mate in that movie played by MacGraw, doesn't correspond to Melissa in “Love Letters,” but both women are sympathetic, creative artists.
Then there's the issue of — spoiler alert — a tragic ending that connects MacGraw and O'Neal to the couple in “Love Letters.”
“The next time we do a project,” MacGraw says, “Ryan is going to be the one who croaks.”
Throughout their post-performance nosh at the hotel — after first changing seats so that O'Neal can keep an eye on a hockey game on one screen, and McGraw can avoid Donald Trump's face filling up the other — the nonstop banter is quick and funny.
On making “Love Story”: “If we'd known it was going to be so big, we would have been more demanding,” O'Neal says.
That film was quickly parodied, especially for its famous line, “Love means never having to say you're sorry.” O'Neal even took part in some of the mockery. “What's Up, Doc?” the 1972 screwball comedy he starred in with Barbra Streisand, ends with Streisand coyly quoting the words and O'Neal responding, “That's the dumbest thing I ever heard.”
“I thought I was going to get the laugh for my line, but Barbra got the big laugh,” says O'Neal, who recounts an unexpected “What's Up, Doc?” admirer on the Malibu beach in California — the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
“He told me, ‘I've never been a Barbra Streisand fan,'” O'Neal says, “ ‘but “What's' Up, Doc?” is so funny that I bought a copy. I watch it when I want a laugh.' I said, ‘And then you make your decisions.' He died a few months later.”
Name-dropping peppers the meal. Elizabeth Taylor pops up with particular animation and sets off an extended chat, not all flattering, about her love of jewelry.
“Richard Burton was very kind to me and very interesting,” O'Neal adds. “I can see why [Taylor] wanted to get married to him over and over.”
MacGraw, who left California for Santa Fe, N.M., years ago — “There's no San Andreas Fault, but there are two nuclear power stations, so I could get vaporized, which would be better,” she says — takes wholeheartedly to the business of touring. During her free time, she explores each city.
O'Neal is less inquisitive.
“I just close myself off in my hotel room and eat a lot of apples,” he says, before breaking into another sly grin. “Then I try Ali's door — and it's locked.”
Talk turns to health. O'Neal has already fended off leukemia and cancer (the disease that claimed longtime mate Farrah Fawcett in 2009). He has a new medical concern.
“I found out I have diabetes,” O'Neal says. “I was on the cusp for decades. I need insulin now. I'm getting very comfortable with it.”
MacGraw looks worried.
“I love sugar,” she says. “And I am completely addicted to dark chocolate. Decades ago, I was on some show hawking something and [former Baltimore Orioles pitcher Jim Palmer] came on to urge everyone to take a cholesterol test. Everyone passed, but not me.”
Both actors seem so vibrant that it's hard to imagine either facing any major health problems. O'Neal lobs another one-liner: “We're really much older than we appear. We need a lot of pills to keep going.”
Whatever it takes, the duo appears to be flourishing on the “Love Letters” tour; they talk about possibly taking the show to the United Kingdom and Australia.
Suddenly, O'Neal announces: “Hollywood is calling.” With that, he sprints from the table, stopping long enough for a lingering embrace with MacGraw before disappearing into an elevator.
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