(2 of 2)
The New York worlds of fashion and films are symbiotic, and it was inevitable that she would be offered auditions. It was not until she heard about Goodbye, Columbus, however, that she really decided to make the try. Her first reading was a horror, and Producer Stanley Jaffe told her with tactful finality: "I'm sorry, you're just not Jewish." But Jaffe and Director Larry Peerce could not find anyone else, and Ali kept trying. She rehearsed all Memorial Day weekend with co-star Richard Benjamin, and the resultant screen test finally landed her the part. Then her troubles really began.
For the first few weeks of filming, she was a svelte mass of insecurities, intimidated by her co-stars and frightened by the complex process of moviemaking. Her first scene with dialogue was a 15-take trauma. "I started to miss my mark over and over again," she recalls. "I could feel my face and body freeze as each take got more and more terrible. All I could think of was the time I was wasting and the money I was costing." Gentle coaxing from Director Peerce and a little tactful hand holding from Benjamin pulled her through the scene —and, according to her, the picture. Watching herself for the first time in the completed film, Ali alternated between "diving under the chair in front" and sustaining herself with a chocolate milkshake. After an advance screening, however, when Ingrid Bergman and Roman Polanski offered congratulations, she began to feel more assured.
Making of the Star. Now comfortable as a performer, she handles what she calls the "maniacal cycle" of publicity with a kind of patient expertise, even though she has "this insanity streak" about keeping her personal life personal. She lives on Manhattan's West Side, "right near the Thalia theater," with a Scottie named Grounds, and has been seeing the same nameless beau for two years. She also says lots of disarmingly ingenuous things: "I think justifiable film nudity is terrific" and "People must find me terribly boring because I'm always talking in superlatives."
What's more, she remains in awe of the "beautiful adventure" she had making Columbus. She maintains that "the idea is to be a damned good actress" and continues to stress her general lack of experience. For all her callowness, though, she is no amateur about managing her career. She turned down major parts in two multimillion-dollar epics because "they just weren't right," and has the anti-star's horror of getting hung up in contractual commitments, "Did you see Katharine Ross in Hellfighters?" she asks. "That poor girl. I'd rather do nothing than a film like that."
Last week Paramount's Robert Evans finally found a project to satisfy Ali. Love Story, which will go into production this fall, casts her severely against type as the daughter of a cab driver. Besides allowing her to die at the end, the film, according to Ali, has other advantages. "It will be very different from Columbus," she says, "and it's going to be made in New York, where all my friends are. That means that while I'm actually filming, I'll still be able to go to acting class."