Young lovers Jennifer and posh toff Oliver Barrett IV manage to stay together through college despite family warfare and class differences, only to find that Jennifer can not have children...and is seriously ill.
Erich Segal's bestseller given the Big Time Treatment was a smash hit, very much of its time, and responsible for the grisly tenet "Love means never having to say you're sorry". He is Ryan O'Neal, she is Ali MacGraw, Rich Boy meets Poor Girl at Harvard, they marry, he is disinherited and they live on love and tuna fish sandwiches while she puts him through law school.
When the good times finally start to roll she succumbs to a fatal disease. MacGraw never could act her way out of a paper bag, but she dies very prettily, cuing Oscar winning violins and O'Neal's Big Scene. Older viewers may, however, bawl more at the ruin of once-handsome leading man Ray Milland as the mean, old, bald dad.