Decades After 'Love Story' Ali MacGraw, Ryan O'Neal Join Together On Stage For 'Love Letters'

DETROIT (WWJ) - They're back together again -- after 45 years.

It's clear that these two iconic stars share a bond - often holding hands during the interview.

Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal, the young couple in the classic movie 'Love Story,' whose life together is cut short by the terminal illness of McGraw's character.

"I've always missed that feel I had making that picture," says O'Neal. "Everything so dynamic and beautiful about it and I've been searching for it ever since and I got it now, again," alluding to the production of 'Love Letters' the stage play the two perform together at the Fisher Theatre. "It's funny -- about life."

At 77, MacGraw looks a little different these days. She has stopped dying her hair dark brown.

MacGraw is protective of O'Neal when the interview questions get too personal but talks about moving away from Hollywood to Santa Fe and letting her hair go grey. She said it took guts.

"The truth is we are alive," says MacGraw, "and there's a big difference between going 'oh God - life is such a drag' I wish it were 1970? I do not."

She says she's tired of the idea that life is over at 40 for women and the "homogenized" actresses in Hollywood fighting for parts.

"I looked around the room at my yoga studio and these great looking woman who are all doing wonderful new things with their lives and I said 'screw it' I'm sick and tired of trying to keep up with that thing. That's who I am - I mean - this is it," said MacGraw.

"Imagine having lived very full, complicated lives and walking into a room and it's still there," she says of the chemistry between the two.

'Love Letters' is the story of two old friends told over 50 years of letters. The pair say that 45 years after Love Story, their chemistry is still there. The show runs at the Fisher through April 17.