Ali MacGraw on Just Tell Me What You Want, Oprah's 'Nonsense' and the Drug of Celebrity

Of course the iconic sequence for this film would have to be your tussle with Alan King at Bergdorf Goodman. How choreographed was all that?

Two-three-kick, four-five-six-slap, seven-eight-nine-raincoat -- it was as specific as a dance sequence. And I will tell you an incredibly funny story: I had a wonderful mother, who was, at the time, very recently a widow, very bright, terrific values, not at all sure what her daughter was doing in the movies with that education. And we were staying in a hotel near Bergdorf's; that's where I lived in New York. I said to her, "Would you have any mild curiosity about watching the shooting today?" She was way too smart to sit around and watch take 47 of three lines of dialogue, you know? So we walked over, and the scene started, and there she was in hat and gloves, they put her near the camera. She was not a dear little old lady; she was a really smart, very accomplished intellectual, cool lady. We get through the whole thing, trying not to laugh, of course. I think Alan was hoping to God that I wouldn't give him the lethal kick by mistake. And the thing was over and my mother said to me -- the only comment she ever made, in my whole career, which had been going on for some time -- "Dear, I had no idea you worked so hard." [Laughs] Isn't that great?

And I also remember one moment of terrible panic, because I have a terrible throwing arm. When I would ask my son, when he was growing up, "Do you want to go outside and throw the baseball?", he'd say, "No, no thanks, Mom." When they handed me that perfume bottle and said hit that pyramid, I just hoped to God I would hit it because that's how bad my throw is. But it really is a fabulous scene. That's Sidney. He choreographed that scene. We trashed the bottom floor of Bergdorf's, and it was as much fun as it's possible to have while making a movie.

And he's certainly one of the quintessential New York directors.

Oh, yeah! And I'm a New Yorker, and working in New York was divine for me. I loved working there, and going to work there, which I've been able to do three or four times in my career, and I just love it. It's my favorite.

You're out west now, though, right?

I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico. And I travel a tremendous amount, I'm in New York and California a lot, but then also I like faraway places a lot.

I know you've gotten very involved with yoga and with animal rights activism in recent years. Do you miss the industry at all?

Well, "the industry," I was never connected with, although I was married to the head of production [at Paramount]. But it wasn't my scene. I don't mean it deprecatingly; I have a more mixed bag of friends and acquaintances, some of whom are in the film business, but more of them aren't. And I don't think I miss it at all right now. I go to the movies all the time, and I live in a city that probably has more extraordinary foreign and independent films than anywhere in the country -- [except] maybe San Francisco and New York. It's very, very rich, and I'm very dazzled by those early filmmakers who were primarily interested in the story and the emotional life and less in whether there was a tie-in with Burger King or a Mattel made-in-China doll that looks like the leading lady. I mean, it's not my idea of the art form.

I'm dazzled by the people that make great movies, every one of them, whether it's the cinematographer, the person who does the music, the director, the writer. And the sense that it takes a whole community to make a masterpiece. I know enough people in all those other parts of the film industry to know that they know when it's really working, even if they're not the actor, even if they might be the head grip. There's a sense on the set when something is really working, and in that sense, I love the art form. But the business, politics and God knows, the media frenzy and privacy invasion, I don't miss whatsoever.

You did do the Love Story reunion on Oprah this year, and there was the implication that you and Ryan O'Neal might consider dating.

Oh, that was a whole bunch of... That kind of stunned me, because Oprah is a great place to say something important, it really is. She's so bright and she has such a serious version of what she wanted to do with pop television and she succeeded, that to waste time on stuff like that annoyed me. Really, one of the things I wanted to say on Oprah -- because she's a person who's done such extraordinary service, and that's part of her message, and it's something I feel very strongly about -- we had so much room to talk about what are we doing with our lives now as opposed to rehashing a 40-year-ago adventure. So all of that silly nonsense was time-wasting, as far as I was concerned.

Given the platform, of the things you're involved with now, what would you have most liked to discuss?

What I really would like to just say is that anything we do for other people, no matter how small, counts. It's incredible -- people like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates and his wife, this model they have done for mega-help. It's moved me to tears that they've done this. But those of us who don't operate at that level can still change the world. We're at a moment now where we have to. On every level: environmentally, in terms of sexual misunderstanding, in terms of our commitment to peace and our commitment to quality of life all over the planet, and so on. And I live in a community where this is a really big piece of why we live here. So I just thought, you know, it's great if you have an extra bunch of millions, and it's fabulous, but my mother taught me that if we don't have anything, and we can come up with a dollar, that it goes into that bigger pool of community and changes the world. And that's what I wanted to say.

It's so easy to perceive of a big movie star, whether now or then, and imagine that it's all about money and power and cars and planes and all that stuff. But the power that it gives you to try to set an example is enormous. God knows Oprah has done it, and I believe that's the way those of us given some sort of break need to operate, because there's so many people who live such suffering lives with no sunshine in them. Nobody's clapping when they come into the room. It's a question of priorities. I don't believe, as fast as things are moving now, and as saturated as we are in a kind of vulgar pop media that concentrates on celebrity and not much else, that I think we all have a responsibility to say, "Hold on a second -- how's the public school doing in your community?" I just think every little bit changes the face of our world. There's this cynicism now, and this grayness, and I'm just sick of it. I think the biggest drug of the last hundred years is celebrity, and people are just stoned on it.

Well, you've talked about the idea of celebrities being role models, and I'd argue that one of your most impressive achievements is showing that there's life away from the spotlight.

A great life! A great, rich, adventuresome, human-scale life. Of course! And there are many many people who have figured this out, but unfortunately, when the Kool-Aid is passed around, a lot of people just get loaded on it, and some really important stuff gets lost. And lives get lost, which is the saddest part. If you're not ready to live when the clapping stops, you've got a real problem. And it does stop, unless you continue to seek out being the center of attention, and then, I guess, it goes on a little longer.

I feel like the people on Celebrity Rehab are more addicted to the camera that's in their face than they ever were to booze or drugs.

There's no question at all. Oh God, that [show]'s just disgraceful! So if, because they all do have substance abuse problems, if they don't go into a situation where nobody treats them specially, where they realize they're just part of the human race, they're not gonna get sober. And that's the really heartbreaking thing. To make a quote, "good show" out of somebody's meltdown, God, it's like throwing the gladiators to the lions. I think it's appalling. It's disgusting, and honestly, there are so many rehabs now that are just about making money. Lives are being lost. Anyway, that's another subject.

I think I'm a very lucky woman. I've had this astonishing career for someone who has no background preparing me for it. And the miracle of working with people like the ones I worked with on Just Tell Me What You Want, and an agent smart enough to say this is something you should be lucky enough to do ... I'm very lucky. This doesn't happen to a lot of people.

Well, thank you for your time, and for taking me on your 30-year-old adventure.

No, I think it's longer... Oh it is 30, right. The other one's 40. That's surreal to me -- I'm not being coy, but... [Whispers] These are really scary numbers. [Laughs] I mean, because it's sort of easier to say one's age than to say, "Forty years ago..." and you know you weren't peering through the bars of your crib.

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