(12/15/97)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Vice President Al Gore admits it: ``Love Story'' is not the Al and Tipper story after all.
On Sunday, a spokeswoman acknowledged that a ``miscommunication'' by Gore led reporters to believe that he and his wife were the models for the 1970s hot romance novel. Ginny Terzano borrowed a line from the book in offering Gore's apology.
``If love means never having to say you're sorry, then politics means you have to say it all the time,'' Terzano said. ``We apologize if there was a miscommunication with reporters in an off-the-record conversation where they did not take notes.''
``Love Story'' author Erich Segal told The New York Times he was ``befuddled'' by the comments in the first place. He said he called Gore, and the vice president said it was a misunderstanding.
Segal told the Times he got to know both Gore and his roommate, actor Tommy Lee Jones, during his 1968 sabbatical at Harvard University. Jones got his acting break with a small part in the film version of Segal's book.
Segal said that when he was creating Oliver Barrett IV, the book's romantic hero, Jones inspired the side that was ``the tough, macho guy who's a poet at heart.'' Gore was the basis for the side that had a controlling father and was pressured to follow in that father's footsteps, he said.
``That was the conflict, to keep up the family tradition. Albert Gore Sr., Albert Gore Jr., Oliver Barrett III, Oliver Barrett IV -- you have to change some things,'' Segal said.
Segal said he knew Mrs. Gore, then a Boston University student, but she was not the basis for his female love interest, the hip, flip Jenny Cavilleri. Segal has previously said she was inspired by a woman he dated at Harvard.
Spokeswoman Terzano said the ``Love Story'' character ``is an endearing footnote'' in Gore's life. ``'Love Story' buffs should not blow it out of proportion, nor attempt to write a new sequel to this American classic,'' she said.
The controversy grew from a Time magazine report about Gore's musings aboard Air Force Two following a three-city tour of Texas last month. Gore spoke of an old Tennessee newspaper story that said he and his wife were the models for Oliver and Jenny.
Segal said Gore told him he only told the reporters aboard the plane that the article had made an erroneous connection.
Terzano closed the statement with a quip regarding Gore's media portrayal. ``He's just like a robot. He has no emotions. Love is not something he can understand,'' she noted.