Actor Ryan O'Neal, star of 'Love Story' and 'Paper Moon,' dead at age 82
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[December 09, 2023]
By Steve Gorman and Lisa Richwine
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Actor Ryan O'Neal, the 1970s Hollywood heartthrob
who starred in such films as the smash-hit tearjerker "Love Story,"
screwball comedy "What's Up, Doc?" and "Paper Moon," the movie that also
launched his daughter's movie career, died on Friday at age 82.
The performer's death was announced by his son Patrick O'Neal in an
Instagram post. No cause of death was given.
O'Neal, also known for his long-time relationship with the late actress
Farrah Fawcett, revealed in 2012 that he had been diagnosed with
prostate cancer, though he said then that he was expected to make a full
recovery.
O'Neal, a Los Angeles native who trained as an amateur boxer before
taking up acting, made his showbiz breakthrough in 1964 when he landed
the role of Rodney Harrington in the hit ABC prime-time television soap
opera "Peyton Place."
The actor is perhaps best known for his Oscar-nominated star turn
opposite Ali MacGraw in the 1970 romantic drama "Love Story," a box
office sensation adapted from Erich Segal's popular novel of the same
title.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Dec/09/images/ads/current/peasley_sda_HFH_2023.png)
A key line of dialogue from the film became one of Hollywood's most
memorable catch phrases: "Love means never having to say you're sorry."
It spawned a poorly received 1978 sequel, "Oliver's Story," co-starring
O'Neal and Candice Bergen.
Ryan also scored a major success in the 1972 romantic comedy "What's Up,
Doc?" co-starring Barbra Streisand and directed by Peter Bogdanovich,
who also directed O'Neal in the 1973 hit "Paper Moon," which co-starred
the actor's then-young daughter.
Her debut role in the Depression-era drama as a precocious,
cigarette-smoking orphan earned Tatum O'Neal an Academy Award at the age
of 10 for best supporting actress.
She appeared with her father again in the 1976 Bogdanovich comedy
"Nickelodeon," along with Burt Reynolds.
Tatum O'Neal and her younger brother Griffin ended up living with their
father after their parents divorced in 1967 and their mother, the
actor's first wife, Joanna Moore, lost custody due to alcohol and drug
abuse.
'HOPELESS FATHER'
But Tatum O'Neal claimed in a 2004 memoir, "A Paper Life," that she
suffered years of parental abuse and fits of jealousy from her father,
and that he introduced her to drugs as a youngster, leading to an
estrangement of nearly 25 years.
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![](../images/120923PIX/ent_a.64.jpg)
Actor Ryan O'Neal watches the Los Angeles Kings play the Vancouver
Canucks during Game 4 of their NHL Western Conference Hockey playoff
quarter-finals in Los Angeles, California April 18, 2012.
REUTERS/Danny Moloshok/File Photo
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Dec/09/images/ads/current/rohlfs_lda_WORSHIP_2023.png) According to Tatum O'Neal, she and
her brother were left to care for themselves when her father moved
in with Fawcett, the "Charlie's Angels" television star.
In February 2007, the elder O'Neal, then in his 60s, was arrested
after a fight with his son Griffin that ended in gunfire.
Prosecutors later decided to not to file charges.
Although he acknowledged in a 2009 Vanity Fair magazine interview,
"I'm a hopeless father," O'Neal disputed his daughter's claims of
abuse and neglect. The two eventually reconciled and appeared in a
biographical docuseries together in 2011 called "Ryan and Tatum: The
O'Neals."
Patrick O'Neal, who announced his father's death, was the actor's
third child, born to his second wife, Leigh Taylor-Young
The actor's fourth child, a son named Redmond from his relationship
with Fawcett, also struggled with substance abuse and was arrested
on several occasions in 2008 and 2009 for drug offenses leading to
jail time.
Still, O'Neal's relationship with Fawcett proved to be his most
enduring. They were together from 1979 until 1997. Then, after a
break-up of several years, they reunited in 2001 until her death in
2009, following a long battle with cancer.
O'Neal's film career cooled after the mid-1970s. He starred in
Stanley Kubrick's historical drama "Barry Lyndon," a movie that took
more than a year to make before opening in 1975 to mixed reviews and
a mediocre box office.
Near the end of his career, O'Neal had a recurring role from 2005 to
2017 on Fox television's police procedural series "Bones," playing
the father of the show's title character, a forensic anthropologist
portrayed by Emily Deschanel.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman and Lisa Richwine in Los Angeles;
additional reporting by Patricia Reaney; Editing by Leslie Adler,
Rosalba O'Brien and Cynthia Osterman)
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