Allie McGraw knew she had to flee California in 1993 after losing everything in the Malibu fires.

More than thirty years have passed since Ali McGraw lost her home in a fire in Malibu in 1993. Now, in light of the LA fires, the 85-year-old “Love Story” actress is sharing her story of loss and hope. She details the moment she knew it was time to flee Los Angeles and offers advice to those affected by the recent devastation.

“When it happened to me, I lost everything,” said McGraw, who now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Hollywood Reporter. “The thin clothes I wore for yoga were all I had after the fire. Everything I had rented the house was in it. Before I left for work in Thailand, I put everything in order. I looked for it and I knew exactly where everything that didn’t fit in the house, including every book.

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McGraw had always dreamed of living near the Pacific Ocean and rented various Malibu homes in the 70s.

But in November 1993, a fire broke out and burned 18,000 acres of Malibu in ten days. Malibu Times. McGraw’s rental house burned down.

“Everything is gone,” she told THR. “The only thing that was there was a funny property overlooking the ocean with the owner’s metal furniture outside. When I looked at this trembling ocean with the sky full of fear and deep smoke, it was like a scene from a movie.”

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After losing her Malibu home to a fire in 1993, McGraw moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. (Everett Collection)

“In a very calm way, ‘What am I supposed to learn from this?’ Which is kind of a sophisticated version of, ‘Why me?’ But why wasn’t I,” she continued. “What happened was so amazing and so big, the Malibu ending was completely destroyed. That’s when I heard this message: It’s time to get out of Los Angeles. I laughed and said, ‘Wow, right?’ Is there a more subtle way to make that point?”

“For some reason, I never cried,” she added. “I never left. This is not a comment about how wonderful I am or anything like that, but I was stone cold. I don’t know why, because it was horrible. It was considered one of the major fires in Malibu, but something was happening now. It cannot begin to touch what is.

McGraw starred opposite Ryan O’Neil in “Love Story.” (Everett Collection)

McGraw made her name in Los Angeles.

During most of the 1960s, McGraw worked as a photography assistant at Harper’s Bazaar magazine and later at Vogue as a model and stylist for years.

In the year In 1969, she gained international recognition for her role in “Goodbye Columbus” and a year later starred opposite Ryan O’Neill in “Love Story”. Los Angeles was home.

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“What happened was so amazing and huge, the Malibu end was completely destroyed. That’s when I heard this message: It’s time to get out of Los Angeles.”

– Ali McGraw

McGraw said she wanted to stay in Malibu, but she came to terms with it.

“That realization coincided with a moment that same week when I was walking with a friend of mine in the ruined Palisades unit,” she said. “We were walking the streets looking for a house to live in. There was nothing. My friend and I had Starbucks and we were with our dogs, and we were down everywhere. I started crying because I was crying. He had been doing this every day for months. I said, ‘I can’t find a place to live.’ He said, ‘But I hear you have a house near Santa Fe?’ I told him it was for sale and if it didn’t sell, he said, ‘Why don’t you go down there?’ i have.

Appearing in her hometown of Santa Fe this week, McGraw is urging people to show compassion and kindness to those affected by the LA fires. (BACKGRID)

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“I didn’t know what I wanted,” she added. “I wasn’t someone who wanted to live in a desert or a dry, dry place. I loved living near the ocean and living among green plants and flowers. What a concept. I went down for a ‘little while’. It was 32 years ago.”

McGraw said it’s important for people to understand that disasters can happen to “any of us” at any time.

“The more people are kind and generous, the better off we are,” she said. “I hope that anyone who has any kind of empty house will want to help these people out, not as a chance to make a big buck, but with an amazingly reasonable rent for a year. We live in a time when people have more money than the entire country and helping two families is really worthwhile.”

The actress is now enjoying a quiet life in Santa Fe, NM. (BACKGRID)

If faced with a similar situation, the actress urges people to show more “compassion, kindness and generosity across the board.”

“(It) could change our civilization,” she said. Whatever the phrase “for the grace of God I go” means? Treat others the way you want to be treated and somehow, with a deep breath and kindness, you will move on to a different feeling as time goes by.

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“Now is a wonderful time for people to connect,” she added. “It doesn’t have to be big, even the smallest gesture creates a special world. We have to start changing the language and emotional behavior of how the world seems to be working for me now, with a lot of hysteria, anger and judgment. I’m sick to death, there is an easy and smooth way.

While McGraw once lived a busy life in Los Angeles, she is enjoying the peace and quiet that Santa Fe brings.

“At this point, I’m a weird old bird. I live north of Santa Fe, kind of, and I’m very involved with the community,” she said. New York Times In May. “I’m happy to be in good health. And I know a lot of people who don’t have a choice. I have a life that makes me happy.”

“I’m grateful that I had all that, but now I live a very different life,” she added. “I don’t care if you see the latest outfit or know the latest song. I don’t feel inferior because I don’t know these things. I’ve done it all and watched it and that was for another time.”

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