

Her mother - who earned the money, but not enough - was quiet, critical. He sat around the house - apparently both a genius and a failure - writing notes to himself in a language he had made up. Inside was a crazy mess, a tight ball of tangled doubts. Outside, she looked good - the byproduct of endless workouts and diets and yoga. She thought she was having a nervous breakdown, that was all. Six years ago, she checked into the Betty Ford Clinic. She describes herself as looking and feeling "like garbage." She joins the legions of The Talking Wounded. A few unhappy affairs become an addiction to men. Two glasses of wine a night becomes a problem with alcohol. What happened to her life? Why hasn't she been happy? She examines herself through a gigantic microscope: A wrinkle becomes a crevice. Why didn't she get more of that? Over and over in her new book, "Moving Pictures," she shuffles her faults like tarot cards, searching for an explanation.

Their relationship is so much about, among other things, friendship and respect."įriendship. "He's my favorite human being on the planet, and he goes out with a girl I'm nuts about. They wore old clothes and relaxed smiles. Her son, Josh Evans, turned up - perhaps another member of her support group - with his girlfriend, Natasha Wagner, the daughter of Natalie Wood and adopted daughter of Robert Wagner. Her new boyfriend - his first name is Jeff - sat waiting in a car. Her dog sat outside in the Southern California sunlight, tied to a parking meter and wearing a bandanna. She smiled - a glorious traffic jam of huge white uncapped teeth - and you could feel her thinking about it. It was indiscernible, but she swore it was there. She has a freshness, and a sadness, that no camera has captured. She was super nice, appreciative, nearly mealy. She stroked a straw, gently, for nearly two hours. She shifted the glasses around on the table linen. Her thin, tan fingers played with silver rings. Ali MacGraw came to the bleached-white cafe in bleached denim - the palest blue - head to toe.
