Ryan O’Neal, the leading man who started a remarkable 1970s run in Hollywood with his Oscar-nominated role as Oliver in “Love Story,” died at 82 years old, according to his son, Patrick O’Neal, a sportscaster with Bally Sports West. He was diagnosed with chronic leukemia in 2001 and prostate cancer in 2012.
In an Instagram post, Patrick wrote, “As a human being, my father was as generous as they come. And the funniest person in any room. And the most handsome, clearly, but also the most charming. Lethal combo. He loved to make people laugh. It’s pretty much his goal. Didn’t matter the situation; if there was a joke to be found, he nailed it. He really wanted us laughing. And we did all laugh. Every time. We had fun. Fun in the sun.”
O’Neal was born on April 20, 1941, in Los Angeles, the older son of Charles O’Neal and Patricia Callaghan. In 1956 and 1957, he competed in Golden Gloves events in Los Angeles. According to his website, he compiled a boxing record of 18-4 with 13 knockouts. In the late 1950s, O’Neal and his family moved to Munich, and he became obsessed with the syndicated TV show “Tales of the Vikings,” which was shot in Europe and was produced by Kirk Douglas’ company. According to a 1975 newspaper account, O’Neal wrote to another producer, George Cahan, on the show: “I am six feet tall, and with a false beard, I will look as much like a Viking as any actor on set. I may be the Gary Cooper of tomorrow.”
View this post on Instagram
O’Neal went on to perform as a stuntman on the series. On the heels of his cinematic duet with Ali MacGraw, O’Neal starred with Barbra Streisand in “What’s Up, Doc?” and “The Main Event” and partnered with his 9-year-old daughter, Tatum, in Peter Bogdanovich’s wonderful Depression-era tale, “Paper Moon.” O’Neal also played the title character, an Irish rogue in 18th century England, in Stanley Kubrick’s “Barry Lyndon,” the director’s highly anticipated follow-up to “A Clockwork Orange,” and starred in “Nickelodeon.”
Earlier, the sandy-haired O’Neal made the ladies swoon for five seasons when he starred as Rodney Harrington on more than 500 episodes of the hit “Peyton Place,” the 1964-69 serialized ABC melodrama spawned by the Lana Turner movie. O’Neal was married to and divorced from actresses Joanna Moore and “Peyton Place” co-star Leigh Taylor-Young before beginning an on-and-off 30-year relationship with actress and “Charlie’s Angels” icon Farrah Fawcett that ended with her death at age 62 on June 25, 2009.
His relationship with Fawcett began after they were introduced by her then-husband, actor Lee Majors, in 1979. (Majors was headed to a film shoot in Canada and wanted O’Neal to take her to dinner one night because he was worried Fawcett would get lonely.)
They lived together for years in Malibu; had a son, Redmond, who went on to battle drug addiction (he and his father were arrested at home for drug possession in 2008); and starred together in the 1989 ABC dramatic telefilm Small Sacrifices and as co-anchors on the 1991 CBS sitcom Good Sports. In 2012, he published a memoir, Both of Us: My Life With Farrah, and three years later, he was back with MacGraw for a national tour in Love Letters.
Read Previous Post
