Ali MacGraw, Whose Malibu Home Burned Down in 1993, on Devastation of Loss and Best Ways Forward
Shortly after a starring turn in Arthur Hiller’s 1970 classic Love Story opposite Ryan O’Neal made her a Hollywood phenomenon, Ali MacGraw found her place in Malibu. She mostly loved a small home, something close to the water with its fresh ocean air and easy access to Pacific Coast Highway. MacGraw shared a stunning home on the sand during much of the mid- to late 1970s while married to screen icon Steve McQueen. But even after they split, MacGraw stayed on the coast and never planned on leaving. That changed when a catastrophic fire ripped through Malibu in 1993, destroying her modest rental in the Rambla Pacifico neighborhood, taking with it all of her belongings, save for two dogs and a cat rescued by a friend of her only son, Josh Evans, from a marriage to producing legend Robert Evans. It proved to be a life-altering disaster that ultimately led her to a forever home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about the devastation of fires, lessons learned from losing everything and her hopes for how L.A. steps out of the wreckage: “The more people behave with kindness and generosity, the better off we will be.”
Every morning at 7 a.m., I would walk my two dogs with a friend and her two dogs, and then I would go off to Santa Monica, about 12 minutes away, for a yoga class. On our walk, I said, “Oh God, I smell smoke.” We looked up and there was a very dark cloud of smoke to the south, not in Malibu. I figured I would take my class, come home and drive my two cats and dogs up to Oxnard, away from whatever was burning, no big deal. I obviously didn’t throw anything in the car.
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When I got out of the class around 20th Street on Montana Avenue, I looked up and there was a huge, horizontal, dark gray corkscrew fire cloud. It was shocking. I started to drive back to my house, which normally would’ve been quick. Along the way there were what seemed like hundreds of firetrucks going by while the middle lanes were filled with all kinds of big trucks. Along the right side of PCH were people coming down with dogs and kids and boxes trying to get out of what I then realized was a big fire.
Traffic was so slow. I figured I could walk faster than we were moving, so I pulled over to the side of the road to not impair any of the firetrucks. I started to walk and a man in a big truck yelled my name though I didn’t know him. He must’ve lived near me and asked, “Do you think they’d let us go in there?” As soon as I got closer, he said, “Hop in, I’ll give you a ride.” He was sobbing and I asked if he was trying to save someone or his animals, and he said, “No, it’s my chairs.” Maybe they were rare. I don’t know.
It was 32 years ago, but he had one of those funky old telephones that looked like a tiny attaché case. I used it to call my answering service and there was a message from a friend of my son [Joshua Evans], saying, “I’m in the neighborhood. I knew that this fire was going to spread so I’ve got the two dogs and a cat.” I was, of course, anxious to get the other cat. I wasn’t crying, I wasn’t frightened. I was in shock.
I got to the bottom of the hill and could see the ridge that my house and others were on. Almost all were sort of oldish homes; this wasn’t an area with huge, $3-plus million houses. These were owned by real people, and they were covered in flames.
It was very, very obvious that I was not going to be able to go look around the property for my cat. This is really stupid, but I figured I would just throw this African textile wrap over my yoga outfit and walk in flip flops to the ocean to stand back as the flames roared down the hill. A policeman stopped me by saying, “Get out of here. There’s a gas station over there and it could blow.” I thumbed a ride with whomever and got out in Brentwood. I called my son’s father, Robert Evans, who was a great friend of mine, and told him to turn on his television to see what was happening in my neighborhood. He said, “Well, come over here and stay as long as you like.” I told him about my cat and two dogs that I needed to keep with me. He wasn’t really an animal person but he, in an incredibly generous way, said that it was OK. I went over there.
This is what I need to say about the fire. It was shocking. It was 100 percent demolition of around 350 houses, including all 15 on our street because the big fire equipment could not navigate the skinny little road. I’ve driven past it for many years now and it looks like they’ve built it back up the same way, which is insane because the area, Rambla Pacifico, burns so frequently. Back in the ‘70s when I was married to [Steve McQueen] and we lived in Trancas, I remember thinking, “My God, what if something happens? How do you get out of here with only one road?” If the fire started on the top of the hill, you’d really be trapped with all that incredible greenery.
When it happened to me, I lost everything. The sleazy little outfit I had on for yoga was literally all I owned after the fire. I had just rented the house and everything I owned was inside. Right before I left to do a job in Thailand, I had put everything exactly the way I wanted it and anything that didn’t fit in that house, I got rid of. I knew where absolutely everything was, including every book.
We had no money when I was a kid and my career did not take place in the paychecks of today. And yet I knew it wasn’t about the stuff. But what do you do when the stuff is gone? My parents were artists. Their work was gone. A collection of really amazing things I had — gone. Childhood books that now are expensive replacements for people that don’t read, gone. The books I made for my then-teenage kid, gone.
In borrowed clothes, I went with my son the next day to poke around the embers in the concrete block outline of what used to be my house. Everything was gone. The only thing that was there was a funny piece of property overlooking the ocean along with metal outdoor furniture from the owner of the house. Looking out over this churning ocean with the sky full of horror and deep smoke, it was like a movie scene.
I remember saying very calmly, “What am I supposed to be learning from this?” Which is a sort of sophisticated version of, “Why me?” But it wasn’t why me. What happened was so bizarre and enormous, that end of Malibu was absolutely destroyed. It was then that I heard this message: It’s time for you to get out of Los Angeles. I burst out laughing and thought, “Wow, isn’t there a subtler way to make that suggestion?”
For some reason, I never cried. I never carried on. This is not a comment about how fabulous I am or any of that, but I was stone cold calm. I don’t know why, because it was horrific. It was considered one of the major fires in Malibu, but nothing that’s ever happened can begin to touch what’s going on right now.
I had nearly photographic memory about where everything was in my house. I draw well, so I made a book filled with drawings. In my mind, I went through the few rooms I had in my house, room by room, and drew everything I had. I gave it to the insurance guy who said, “I’ve never seen anything like this.” I said, “This is all my money and this is what I want.” I did it to prevent hysteria by just remembering as best I could, which was incredibly important for me to stay very focused and very calm.
I went to the Gap because I didn’t want to do a big, extravagant shopping trip. That was the last thing I wanted to do. I got some jeans, T-shirts, a jacket, a belt, a good handbag somewhere else, and a pair of ballet slippers. When I put it in my room, I thought, “My God, this is really all I need.” I had a little room with a bathroom and shower and towels. I bought six of my favorite books, my friends and I kept fresh flowers in a vase, and that’s about it.
My heart just breaks for people with kids of any age or for those with ill relatives. I’m only speaking as a person who was lucky enough to be healthy and lucky that somebody very kind took me in. The space wasn’t forever but I could sleep there, get clean, hang my stuff in a closet and get grounded. As a single healthy woman, and as someone I should say has been very sober for a long time, I’ve done the work in learning how to stay centered and calm, which was a huge blessing.
What I wanted to do was to stay in Malibu. I loved living there. I rented houses in Malibu from 1971. But what I wanted was a very small house, which I have always had, and one that I knew was safe for dogs and cats so they wouldn’t leap out into the incredible traffic of Pacific Coast Highway. There was no such thing. After looking and looking and looking and failing to find anything, I decided to go to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I had bought my first house, a cottage in the hills. I was literally going to put it for sale that week because I realized I was not someone comfortable with owning two houses. I never knew where I had kept the book or the left shoe. It was just ridiculous.
That realization coincided with a moment that same week when I was walking with my friend in the heartbreaking part of the Palisades that’s just been destroyed. We were walking the streets looking for a house in which I could live. Nothing. I can remember my friend and I were holding our Starbucks and we were with our dogs, and we went down every single block. I started to cry because I had been doing that every day for months. This man had apparently seen me crying, and he said, in a really gruff way, “Why are you crying?” I said, “I can’t find a place to live.” He said, “But I heard that you had a house near Santa Fe?” I told him that it was for sale and he said if it hasn’t been sold, “Why don’t you just go down there?”
I didn’t know if I would like it. I never was somebody who wanted to live in the desert or a dry, dry place. I loved having the ocean nearby, and living among greenery and flowers. He said this unbelievably obvious thing that changed my life: “If you don’t like it, don’t stay.” What a concept! I went down for “a little while.” That was 32 years ago.
We’ve got to come to the understanding now that any minute it could be any one of us, and that includes the people who have multiple huge and incredible houses. The more people behave with kindness and generosity, the better off we will be. I would like to hope that anybody with any sort of empty dwelling feels inclined to offer it up to help these people for a year with the most amazingly reasonable rent that they ever imagined, not as a big moneymaking opportunity. We live during a time when people have more money than entire countries and for whom helping a couple of families would be really impactful.
There’s an underpinning to this whole story, which is how do we treat each other? The answer seems to be in rage, anger and greed. This, for me, is an absolute cutoff for all that. Compassion, kindness and generosity all the way across the board could change our civilization. Whatever happened to the phrase, “There but for the grace of God go I?” Treat others the way you would like to be treated, and somehow with deep breaths and kindness, you move into another feeling as time goes by.
The only thing that freaks me out is there’ve been really horrendous fires in that corridor for decades. I’ve been through three of them, but the final one took my house. I hope there will be some really brilliant, cutting-edge architects who band together to teach us how to build better houses and what we dare do in the name of foliage for the next generation. These fires are here to stay because I don’t think anyone is going to fool fires into never happening again.
The final thing I want to be sure and say, something that is rather important, is that now is an amazing time for people to reach out. It doesn’t have to be enormous, even the smallest gesture makes a world of difference. We have to start flipping the language and the emotional behavior of how the world seems to be operating to me right now, with high hysteria, anger and judgment. I’m sick to death of it. There’s an easier, softer way.
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