'Love Story' author Erich Segal passes away

Erich Segal, a classics scholar and best-selling novelist best known as the author of "Love Story," has died at his home in London.

Segal, who had suffered from Parkinson's disease for the past 25 years, died Sunday (Jan. 17) of heart failure. He was 72.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Segal attended Harvard and was a classics professor at Yale when he wrote "Love Story," which became a runaway bestseller when it was released in 1970. He also wrote the script for the movie adaptation starring Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw, which was released later that year and became a huge hit in its own right. Segal earned an Oscar nomination for his screenplay.

He wrote a sequel, "Oliver's Story," in 1977, and several other novels in addition to a number of scholarly works dealing with classical Greek literature. He taught at Yale, Princeton and Harvard before moving to England and taking a position at Oxford in 1980.

In addition to the scripts for "Love Story" and the film version of "Oliver's Story," he also co-wrote the Beatles movie "Yellow Submarine." That is quite a career, wouldn't you say?

Segal's wife, Karen, and two daughters, Francesca and Miranda, survive him.

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Photo credit: Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw in 'Love Story' (Paramount Pictures)