Author of Love Story, Erich Segal, Writes 72

[U.S. of America]

Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 04:23:00 01/21/2010

Erich Segal, the Ivy League professor who attained mainstream fame and made millions sob as writer of the novel and movie “Love Story,” has died of a heart attack, his daughter said Tuesday. He was 72.

Francesca Segal said her father, whose popular romantic drama coined the phrase “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” died Sunday at his home in London.

She said he had suffered from Parkinson’s diseaseâ€"a neurological condition that affects movementâ€"for 30 years. His funeral was held in London on Tuesday, she said.

Segal was a Yale classics professor and screenplay writer when he turned a proposed movie about two college studentsâ€"preppy Oliver and smart-mouthed Jennyâ€"into a novel.

Published in 1970, “Love Story” was a weeper about a young couple who fall in love, marry and discover she is dying of cancer. It was a million seller guaranteed to make readers cry and critics scream.

A much bigger audience caught up with the film version, which starred Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw.

The hit movie, which won an Oscar and was nominated for six others, tells the story of a wealthy young man, Oliver, who becomes estranged from his father when he marries Jennifer, a woman from a less privileged background.

But the tale takes a tragic twist when Jennifer develops leukemia and eventually dies.

Oliver’s father has a change of heart when he hears what has happened and races to see him, telling his son he is sorry to hear the sad news.