Word: macgraws
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...last Winds of War episode. I drove to Montecito, a suburb south of Santa Barbara, to talk with Robert Mitchum, a gifted storyteller who answers almost every question with an anecdote. I interviewed about 20 people connected with the program: Jan-Michael Vincent at his favorite Malibu hangout, Ali MacGraw at a Los Angeles hotel, John Houseman at a shooting of The Paper Chase. At the end of it all, I felt I'd been involved in a mini-epic...
Along with Henry's adventures in history, Wouk has constructed various subplots involving Henry's family, particularly his son Byron (Jan-Michael Vincent), and Natalie Jastrow (Ali MacGraw), the American Jew Byron woos and marries. Natalie is an impetuous and headstrong woman who works as secretary to her Uncle Aaron (Houseman), a cultivated historian who lives in Bernard Berenson-style splendor outside Siena...
...woman who played Natalie Jastrow was supposed to be about 33, "a big, dark Jewish girl," in Wouk's words. He wanted her so Jewish-looking that her ethnic background would be immediately obvious in several key scenes. The choice: MacGraw, who, though she claims some Jewish ancestry, does not look Jewish. She is honest enough to admit to being 43, but she looks ten years younger...
...MacGraw became a star with her first two movies, Goodbye, Columbus (1969) and Love Story (1971), then dropped out of the business during her marriage to the late Steve McQueen. In the late 1970s, she returned to do such pictures as Convoy, Players and Just Tell Me What You Want, the first two critical failures and the last a box-office flop. The Winds of War may be a turning point in her career, for better or for worse. "Whatever way it goes, it will be rather decisive," she says, "and that's a horrible pressure...
...portrays, is convincing as the civilized survivor of an ancient society who cannot believe that the barbarians have finally broken through the gates; and Vincent brings to the part of Byron a force of vitality and a hard, sometimes menacing passion. The only really bad performance, in fact, is MacGraw's. Although she looks splendid, she flounders in a role for which she is ill suited. Her voice has no inflections, her face has few expressions and her performance has no credibility...