Ryan O'Neal

O'Neal returned to the US and tried to make it as an actor. He made his first TV appearance guest starring on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis episode "The Hunger Strike" in 1960. He followed this with guest shots on The Untouchables, General Electric Theater, The DuPont Show with June Allyson, Laramie, Two Faces West, Westinghouse Playhouse (several episodes), Bachelor Father, My Three Sons, Leave It To Beaver episode "Wally Goes Steady" in 1961 and The Virginian. He was under contract to Universal but they let it lapse.

From 1962 to 1963, O'Neal was a regular on NBC's Empire, another modern-day western, where he played "Tal Garrett" in support of Richard Egan. It ran for 33 episodes. In 1963, the series was revived as Redigo but O'Neal turned down the chance to reprise his role. When the series ended, O'Neal went back to guest-starring on shows such as Perry Mason and Wagon Train.

O'Neal married his first wife, actress Joanna Moore, in 1963. They had two children before separating in 1966. Moore eventually lost custody of their children to O'Neal as a result of her alcoholism and drug abuse.

In 1964 he was cast as Rodney Harrington in the prime time serial drama Peyton Place. O'Neal said he got the role because "the studio was looking for a young Doug McClure".

O'Neal's first lead in a feature came with The Big Bounce (1969), based on an Elmore Leonard novel. In 1969, he appeared in a TV version of Under the Yum Yum Tree (1963).

In 1970, he played an Olympic athlete in The Games. The film had been co-written by Erich Segal, who recommended O'Neal for the lead in Love Story (1970), based on Segal's novel and script. A number of actors had turned down the role including Beau Bridges and Jon Voight before it was offered to O'Neal. His fee was $25,000; he said he had an offer that paid five times as much to appear in a Jerry Lewis film but O'Neal knew that Love Story was the better prospect and selected that instead. Paramount studio head, Robert Evans, who was also married to the film's female lead, Ali MacGraw, said they tested 14 other actors but no one compared to O'Neal; he said the part was "a Cary Grant role – a handsome leading man with lots of emotion." "I hope the young people like it", O'Neal said before the film came out. "I don't want to go back to TV. I don't want to go back to those NAB conventions." Love Story turned out to be a box office phenomenon. It made O'Neal a star and earned him a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actor, although O'Neal was bitter he was never given a percentage of the profits, unlike co-star Ali MacGraw.

O'Neal was also wanted by director Nic Roeg to appear opposite Julie Christie in an adaptation of Out of Africa that was never made. Instead, O'Neal starred in the screwball comedy What's Up, Doc? (1972), for Bogdanovich, and opposite Barbra Streisand. The film was the third-highest-grossing of 1972, and led to him receiving an offer to star in a movie for Stanley Kubrick, Barry Lyndon. While that film was in pre-production, O'Neal played a jewel thief in The Thief Who Came to Dinner (1972) opposite Jacqueline Bisset and Warren Oates. Then he was reunited with Bogdanovich for Paper Moon (1973) in which he starred opposite his daughter Tatum O'Neal. Tatum won an Oscar for her performance in the popular movie and in 1973, Ryan O'Neal was voted by exhibitors as the second-most-popular star in the country, behind Clint Eastwood.

His second marriage was to actress Leigh Taylor-Young, with whom he had a son. They remained friends after divorcing in 1973. "I could speak to parts of Ryan like temper and volatility and reactivity, but I deeply know his goodness", Taylor-Young said.

"What I have to do now, seriously, is win a few hearts as an actor", he said in 1978. "The way Cary Grant did. I know I've got a lot of winning to do. But I'm young enough. I'll get there..."

O'Neal instead played a boxer in a comedy, The Main Event, reuniting him with Streisand. He received a fee of $1 million plus a percentage of the profits. The Main Event was a sizeable hit at the box office. Also in 1979, he produced a documentary about a boxer he managed, The Contender.

A 1984 profile called him "the Billy Martin of Hollywood, whether it's his love affair with Farrah Fawcett... his precocious actor daughter Tatum or fisticuffs with his son Griffin. He just can't seem to stay out of the news." O'Neal said he felt more like Rocky Marciano, "wondering why guys are always picking fights with me. If I'm in a good picture, they'll like me. If I'm not they'll hate me. Hey I'm mad too when I don't make good pictures."

O'Neal spent over a year making Barry Lyndon (1975) for Kubrick. The resulting film was considered a commercial disappointment and had a mixed critical reception; it won O'Neal a Harvard Lampoon Award for the Worst Actor of 1975. Reflecting in 1985, O'Neal said the film was "all right but he [Kubrick] completely changed the picture during the year he spent editing it". The film's reputation has risen in recent years but O'Neal says his career never recovered from the film's reception.

O'Neal was in a relationship with actress Farrah Fawcett from 1979 to 1997. The relationship was tumultuous due to his infidelity and volatile behavior. Fawcett ended the relationship after she discovered O'Neal in bed with actress Leslie Stefanson. O'Neal and Fawcett reunited in 2001 and were together until her death in 2009.

In 2001, O'Neal was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). After struggling with leukemia, O'Neal was frequently seen at Fawcett's side when she was battling cancer. He told People magazine, "It's a love story. I just don't know how to play this one. I won't know this world without her. Cancer is an insidious enemy." In April 2012, O'Neal revealed he had been diagnosed with stage IV prostate cancer.

In 2007, O'Neal was arrested for shooting at Griffin, which he claimed was in self-defense; charges were dropped. O'Neal refused to allow Griffin to attend Fawcett's funeral in 2009. In 2009, O'Neal infamously hit on Tatum at Fawcett's funeral, not recognizing her as his daughter. But in 2011, Tatum reconciled with her father with a book and a TV show, Ryan and Tatum: the O'Neals. In August of that year, O'Neal, Tatum, and Patrick attended Redmond's court appearance on firearms and drug charges. Redmond has struggled with drug addiction for most of his adult life. In 2008, O'Neal and Redmond were arrested for drug possession in their Malibu home. In 2015, Redmond's probation was revoked and he was sentenced to three years in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. In 2018, Redmond was arrested and charged with attempted murder, robbery, assault and drug possession after he allegedly tried to rob a convenience store in Santa Monica. In an interview from jail he blamed his struggles on his parents.

O'Neal said that in 2009 he "made a tremendous amount of money on real estate, more than [he] deserve[s]".

In 2011, Ryan and Tatum attempted to restore their broken father/daughter relationship after 25 years. Their reunion and reconciliation process was captured in the Oprah Winfrey Network series, Ryan and Tatum: The O'Neals, which O'Neal produced. It only ran nine episodes.

"I got married at 21, and I was not a real mature 21", said O'Neal. "My first child was born when I was 22. I was a man's man; I didn't discover women until I was married, and then it was too late." He had romances with Ursula Andress, Bianca Jagger, Anouk Aimée, Jacqueline Bisset, Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross, and Anjelica Huston. According to his daughter Tatum O'Neal, he also had an affair with Melanie Griffith. In her 2014 memoir, Anjelica Huston claimed that O'Neal physically abused her.

In 2016, O'Neal reunited with Love Story co-star Ali MacGraw in a staging of A.R. Gurney's play Love Letters.

April 20: Happy Birthday Ryan O'Neal and Andy Serkis - Lebeau's Le Blog

Ryan O’Neal is celebrating his 77th birthday today.  Like some other recent headliners, he is from a prominent entertainment industry family; his father, Charles O’Neal, was a screenwriter in the forties and fifties with credits on a number of genre films, while three of his children (his Oscar-winning daughter Tatum and her brothers Griffin and […]