Ryan O'Neal, the handsome, charming yet troubled actor, has sadly passed away on December 8th. One of the biggest names in cinema throughout the 1970's, the actor had been suffering from some serious health issues over the last few years which included leukemia and prostate cancer although no exact cause of death has been revealed to date. O'Neal was eighty-two.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, O'Neal was part of a show business family with his mother, Patricia O'Callaghan an actress and his father, Charles O'Neal was a novelist and screenwriter. The oldest of their two sons, O'Neal had first trained to be a Golden Gloves boxer. But the lure of the business proved unavoidable and with some assistance from his mother, he began to get work guest starring in episodes of several popular television series in the 1960's. O'Neal's first major breakout was when he was cast in the nightime soap opera, "Peyton Place" in 1964. The show was a huge hit and made stars out of the young cast which included Mia Farrow, Barbara Perkins and Leigh Taylor-Young, who joined in the third season and later became O'Neal's second wife.
O'Neal's co-stars were making the transition into the movies yet he struggled to find significant roles. But in 1970, O'Neal won a part that would change the course of his career when he was selected to be in the film, "Love Story". Based on a wildly popular novel by Erich Segal, O'Neal, who got the role after several actors turned it down which included Jeff Bridges, Jon Voight and Michael York, was paired with former fashion model, Ali McGraw (who was married to Paramount's studio head, Robert Evans) and this tragic romantic drama went on to become one of the highest-grossing films in U.S. history. Both actors would receive their only Academy Award nominations for their work in "Love Story".
O'Neal's career in the movies took off and he went on to star in Peter Bogdanovich's screwball comedy, "What's Up, Doc?" with Barbra Streisand; "Paper Moon" (which co-starred his daughter, Tatum who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 1973); Stanley Kubrick's now-acclaimed period drama, "Barry Lyndon"; the all-star war film, "A Bridge Too Far"; Walter Hill's cult thriller, "The Driver" and the comedy, "The Main Event" which re-teamed him with Streisand.
But by the 1980's, O'Neal's red-hot film career had cooled considerably. Some of the films he appeared in like the underrated 1984 comedy, "Irreconcilable Differences' (with Shelley Long and Drew Barrymore), "Fever Pitch" and "Tough Guys Don't Dance" which was written and directed by novelist, Norman Mailer were intriguing yet they all disapointed at the box-office. O'Neal returned to television with some movies (including one "The Man Upstairs" with Katharine Hepburn in 1992) and a short-lived sitcom, "Good Sports" in 1991 which co-starred his long-time partner, Farrah Fawcett.
O'Neal was the father of four children; Tatum and Griffin with his first wife, actress, Joanna Moore, Patrick with Taylor-Young and Redmond with Fawcett. He had difficult and volatile relationships with all of them, estranged at various times throughout his life. O'Neal was arrested in 2007 for shooting at Griffin, claiming it was in self-defense but the charges were later dropped. But in later years, his relationships with them had improved with efforts of reconciliation.
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