2023-12-09 00:40:47
American actor Ryan O’Neal, star of the legendary romantic tearjerker “Love Story” (1970), with the role of Harvard Oliver, which he played with Ali MacGraw, has died at the age of 82. O’Neal passed away today, Friday 8 December, his son Patrick O’Neal, a sports journalist for Bally Sports West in Los Angeles, reported on Instagram. The actor was diagnosed with chronic leukemia in 2001 and prostate cancer in 2012.
Ryan O’Neal, born Charles Patrick Ryan O’Neal, was born in Los Angeles on April 20, 1941. For “Love Story” he was nominated for an Oscar as best leading actor in 1971 and won the David di Donatello for best foreign actor in 1972. Arthur Hiller’s film received seven nominations (including best film) and won an Oscar for Francis Lai’s music. During the filming of the film, Erich Segal simultaneously wrote the best seller based on his own screenplay. A sequel was also made in 1978, “Oliver’s Story”, again starring Ryan O’Neal.
“As a human being, my father was as generous as ever,” his son Patrick wrote on social media. “He was a fun person. And the most beautiful obviously, but also the most fascinating. He loved making people laugh. That was pretty much his goal. No matter the situation, if there was a joke to be found, he nailed it. He really wanted us to laugh. And we all laughed. Every time. We had fun”.
Married to the actress Joanna Moore from 1963 to 1967, with whom he had two children, the actors Griffin and Tatum O’Neal, after the divorce Ryan O’Neal remarried the actress Leigh Taylor-Young, with whom he had his third child Patrick.
In 1973 the actor who had enchanted Hollywood with his charm as a young man played the film “Paper Moon” with his eldest daughter Tatum O’Neal, who, thanks to this part, obtained the Oscar while still very young. In 1975 he was chosen by director Stanley Kubrick as the protagonist of the film “Barry Lyndon”.
In the wake of his famous cinematic duet with Ali MacGraw, O’Neal starred with Barbra Streisand in “Did Daddy Send You Alone?” (1972) by Peter Bogdanovich (1972) and “What are you all crazy about?” (1979) directed by Howard Zieff.
When he was already divorced from the two O’Neal actresses, Joanna Moore and from the co-star of the TV series “Peyton Place” (1964-1969) Leigh Taylor-Young, the actor began a thirty-year relationship with the “Charlie’s Angels” actress and icon Farrah Fawcett, which ended with her death at the age of 62 on June 25, 2009.
Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O’Neal together starred in several films including “Love’s Sacrifice” (1989) and the TV series “Good Sports” (1991), and they had a son, Redmond, born in 1985.
In the 1970s O’Neal also starred with Jacqueline Bisset as a computer programmer turned criminal in “The Thief Who Came to Dinner” (1973); he played a general in Richard Attenborough’s World War II-set “The Last Bridge” (1977); he played a getaway driver in Walter Hill’s “The Unpredictable Driver” (1978); and returned as a widower in the sequel to “Love Story” entitled “Oliver’s Story” (1978).
He next appeared on the big screen in “Pink-Eyed Jeans” (1981); “He’s Mine” (1982), directed by James Burrows; “Irreconcilable Dispute” (1984), with Shelley Long; “Gambling Fever” (985) by Richard Brooks; “Tough Guys Don’t Dance” (1987), written and directed by Norman Mailer; “The Strange Case” (1989), with Cybill Shepherd; “Zero Effect” (1998), with Bill Pullman; “Unfaithful Forever” (1996) by Paul Mazursky; and Terrence Malick’s “Knight of Cups” (2015).
In 2008 O’Neal was arrested, together with his son Redmont, at his home in Malibu, California, for possession of narcotics. Despite his turbulent private life, he continued his acting activity: in 2006 he joined the cast of the American television series “Bones”, playing the father of the protagonist Temperance Brennan. He also took part in some episodes of the TV series “90210” (2010). Fawcett caught her husband in bed with a younger actress and they broke up for a time but reunited after O’Neal was diagnosed with leukemia. In 2012 he published a memoir, “Both of Us: My Life With Farrah.”
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