Oliver
The most famous claim emerged in the 1990s and concerned then-Vice President Al Gore. Gore was reported to have falsely claimed that the plot is based on his life at Harvard. In fact, Gore admitted that his suggestion that the story was based on him and his wife Tipper Gore was a "miscommunication." [6] In 1997, Segal confirmed that the character of Oliver was in part based on Al Gore, but that, as the New York Times stated, "only the emotional family baggage of the romantic hero in his novel was inspired by a young Al Gore...it was Gore's Harvard roommate, Tommy Lee Jones, who inspired the half of the character that was a sensitive stud, a macho athlete with the heart of a poet." Segal had met both Jones and Gore at Harvard in 1968, when he was there on sabbatical. Segal also affirmed that Tipper Gore did not figure at all in the story's inspiration. [7] Jones would go on to appear in a supporting role in the film adaptation of the novel.
The story
The oldest origin story – promulgated by Segal himself shortly after the release of the movie, and still frequently cited –Love Story. [8]
However, in 1971, the Italian magazine Oggi ran an interview with Segal in which he recanted that earlier claim. [9]
"I told a lie just once, when I said that it was a true experience of one of my pupils at Yale. I said that because Jennifer is still alive and I was afraid of her becoming caught up in the publicity circus when my book came out." Here Segal was referring to the woman who inspired the character Jenny as "Jennifer," rather than by her real name. In the Oggi interview Segal stated that in fact the origins of Love Story lay in his heartbreak over having lost the woman he loved to another man, a loss which Segal likened to a bereavement. [9]
Jenny
New York magazine in 1971 stated that Jenny resembled the "myopic, athletic, brisk princess" Brenda Patimkin in Philip Roth's Goodbye, Columbus . [10]
However, In 1997, in the wake of the Al Gore story that included mention of Tipper Gore, [11] Janet Sussman Gartner's daughter contacted Maureen Dowd of the New York Times to declare that Gartner had been the real inspiration for Jenny. [12] Dowd's resulting article [13] led to further press coverage. People ran a feature story, [11] and Gartner later appeared on Oprah and Inside Edition. [14]
As related in a 2016 Tablet article, [15] Segal had become smitten with Janet Sussman when they were students at Midwood High School. Segal pursued her for many years, writing her hundreds of letters up to and through his years at Harvard. Segal even followed her to France to celebrate their June birthdays.
The Oggi article included a photograph of Segal on the French Riviera with a woman labeled as "Jennifer, the muse." People wrote [11] that "in a 1971 article on the author, the Italian magazine Oggi identified Gartner in a photo (with Segal in France in 1960) as the woman who had inspired Jenny—without naming her." The Tablet article put the evidence together in the same way: [15] "Though Erich never came out and declared in so many words, 'Janet Sussman is Jenny Cavilleri,' he admitted as much in an extensive interview for the May 1971 edition of the Italian magazine Oggi."
Sussman did not return Segal's romantic feelings, and in 1961 she married future tech pioneer (and fellow Midwood student) Gideon Gartner, who had been wooing Sussman over the same period as Segal. [15] In the Oggi interview Segal said his devastation over Sussman’s marriage to Gartner led directly to Love Story. "The day I had read in the newspaper that Jennifer had gotten married, I realized something: if you lose the woman you love it is over for you, whether she leaves you for another guy or she dies. It was at this point that I started thinking about Love Story. That's why in the book, Jennifer dies: because for me she had died.”
Segal and Sussman (now Janet Sussman Gartner) did stay in touch, and when Segal finished writing Love Story he phoned Gartner and told her, “I’ve just written you my last love letter, and it's 150 pages long.” [12]
