But MacGraw knew she had to flee California in 1993 after losing everything in a fire in Malibu
More than thirty years have passed since then But MacGraw she lost her home in the Malibu fires in 1993. Now, in the light fires in LAThe 85-year-old “Love Story” actress shares her emotional story of loss and resilience. She describes the moment she knew it was time to flee Los Angeles and offers advice to those recently affected by the devastation.
“When that happened to me, I lost everything,” said MacGraw, who currently lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Hollywood Reporter. “That little slimy yoga outfit I had on was literally all I owned after the fire. I had just rented a house and everything I owned was inside. Right before I left for work in Thailand, I put everything right I wanted it and everything that didn’t fit in that house, I got rid of where absolutely everything was, including every book.”
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But MacGraw, best known for her role in the 1970s film “Love Story,” fled Los Angeles in 1993. (Getty Images/Everett Collection)
MacGraw had always dreamed of living near the Pacific Ocean and rented various homes in Malibu throughout the 70s.
However, in November 1993 a a flame broke out and burned 18,000 acres of Malibu over ten days, according to Malibu Times. MacGraw’s rental house was burned to the ground.
“It’s all gone,” she told THR. “The only thing there was a ridiculous piece of property overlooking the ocean complete with metal outdoor furniture from the home owner. Looking at this churning ocean with a sky full of horror and deep smoke, it was like a scene from a movie.”
MacGraw moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico after losing her Malibu home in a 1993 fire. (Everett Collection)
“I remember very calmly saying, ‘What am I supposed to learn from this?’ Which is kind of a sophisticated version of “Why me?” But it’s not me,” she continued. “What happened was so bizarre and huge, that the Malibu area was completely destroyed. Then I heard this message: It’s time for you to leave Los Angeles. I burst out laughing and thought, “Wow, isn’t there a more subtle way for that proposal?”
“For some reason, I never cried,” she added. “I never went on. This is not a comment about how awesome I am or anything, but I was coolly calm. I don’t know why, because it was horrible. It was considered one of the biggest fires in Malibu, but nothing that ever happened can affect what is happening now.”
MacGraw starred opposite Ryan O’Neil in “Love Story.” (Everett Collection)
MacGraw rose to fame in Los Angeles.
During most of the 1960s, MacGraw worked for years at Harper’s Bazaar magazine as a photographic assistant, and later at Vogue as a model and stylist.
In 1969, she gained worldwide fame with her role in “Goodbye, Columbus”, and a year later she starred with Ryan O’Neil in “Love Story”. Los Angeles was home.
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“What happened was so bizarre and huge, that the Malibu area was completely destroyed. That’s when I heard this message: It’s time for you to get out of Los Angeles.”
MacGraw said she wanted to stay in Malibu, but she figured it out.
“That realization coincided with a moment that same week when I was walking with my friend through a heartbreaking part of the Palisades that had just been destroyed,” she said. “We walked the streets looking for a house to live in. Nothing. I remember my friend and I were holding our Starbucks and we were with our dogs, and we walked down every block. I started crying because I did that every day for months This man apparently saw me crying and said, in a really rude way, ‘Why are you crying?’ I said, ‘I can’t find a place to live.’ He said, ‘But I hear you have a house near Santa Fe?’ I told him it was for sale, and he said if it wasn’t, ‘Why don’t you just go down there?'”
MacGraw, seen in her hometown of Santa Fe this week, is urging people to show compassion and kindness to those affected by the LA fires. (BACKGROUND NETWORK)
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“I didn’t know if I would like it,” she added. “I was never someone who wanted to live in a desert or a dry, dry place. I loved having the ocean nearby and living among greenery and flowers. He said this incredibly obvious thing that changed my life: ‘If I don’t like it, don’t stay.’ What a concept! I went down for a while. That was 32 years ago.”
MacGraw said it’s important for people to understand that disasters can happen to “any of us” at any time.
The more people behave kindly and generously, the better off we will be, she said. “I’d like to hope that anyone with any kind of vacant apartment would be willing to offer it to help those people out for a year at the most amazingly reasonable rent they’ve ever imagined, rather than as an opportunity to make a lot of money. We live in a time when people have more money but the whole country and for which the help of a few families would be really influential.”
The actress is now enjoying a quiet life in Santa Fe, NM. (BACKGROUND NETWORK)
Having been through a similar situation, the actress urges people to show more “compassion, kindness and generosity across the board.”
“[It] could change our civilization,” she said. “Whatever happened to the phrase, ‘There, but for the grace of God, go I?’ Treat others as you would like to be treated and somehow with deep breaths and kindness you move into another feeling as time passes.”
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“Now is an incredible time for people to reach out,” she added. “It doesn’t have to be huge, even the smallest gesture makes a world of difference. We need to start changing the language and emotional behavior of how I feel the world is working right now, with high hysteria, anger and I’m sick of it. There is an easier, softer way. “
While MacGraw once lived a busy life in Los Angeles, she enjoys the peace and quiet that Santa Fe brings.
“I’m a weird old bird at this point. I live north of Santa Fe, kind of out in the country, and I’m very involved in the community,” she told The New York Times in May. “I’m blessed to be in good health. And I know so many people who don’t have that choice. I have a life that makes me happy.”
“I’m grateful that I had all that, but now I live a completely different life,” she added. “I don’t care at all about being seen in the latest piece of clothing or knowing the latest song. I don’t feel inferior that I don’t know those things. I did all that and they looked at me, and that was for another time.”
