Trivia / Love Story

• Baby Name Trend Starter: Before Love Story, Jennifer was a fairly uncommon name. After Love Story, Jennifer was the most popular baby name for girls in the US for fourteen years.
• Cast the Expert: Dartmouth's hockey team portrayed the hockey players in the movie.
• Colbert Bump: A lot of the newer generation likely know of the movie from The Simpsons episode where Marge and Homer watch it on a date night.
• Dawson Casting: Ryan O'Neal was 29 and Ali MacGraw was 31 when they played the early 20-something Oliver and Jenny, respectively.
• Enforced Method Acting: Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw had to rehearse for ten days before filming, so that they would already be friends by the time they played lovers on screen.
• Novelization First: Author Erich Segal wrote the screenplay first, then adapted it into a novel, which was published before the film's release, and became a runaway bestseller.
• Star-Making Role: For Ryan O'Neal. In fact, because of this, he was instrumental in getting Barry Lyndon made.
• Talent Double: Bill Cleary, Olympic hockey star, was Ryan O'Neal's double for scenes where Oliver is seen playing hockey or ice skating.
• Throw It In!: The famous line "love means never having to say you're sorry" was actually said wrong by Ali MacGraw when they filmed the scene. In the screenplay, it's "love means not ever having to say you're sorry".
• What Could Have Been:
  • Barbara Parkins was the first choice for the role of Jenny, but it was one of many potential big parts she turned down before opting to move to the UK and live off her money from Peyton Place.
  • Warren Beatty, Beau Bridges, Jeff Bridges, James Caan, Keith Carradine, Michael Douglas, Peter Fonda, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Burt Reynolds, Donald Sutherland, Jon Voight, Christopher Walken, and Michael York were all considered for the role of Oliver.
• Why Fandom Can't Have Nice Things: The production of this film caused enough damage to Harvard University's campus to the point where they've almost always turned down offers to film there since.
  • The policy mentioned here was actually set later in the 1970s, after filming of A Small Circle of Friends caused at least as much damage. A small number of later productions have been able to film brief scenes on campus, with one notable example being With Honors. Most of the exceptions (including With Honors) involve films that had Harvard alums involved in key production roles and had plots that cast Harvard in a very favorable light.
• Write Who You Know: Oliver was based on friends of the author, college roommates Tommy Lee Jones, and Al Gore. The movie was also Tommy Lee Jones' film debut as Hank Simpson.

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