The American actor Ryan O’Neal, known for iconic films of the 70’s such as “Love Story” and “Paper Moon”, died this Friday at the age of 82. “This is very hard for us (…) Ryan had a great impact and this will be difficult without him. It means and will mean a huge void in our lives,” announced his son, Patrick O’Neal, in an Instagram post.
No further details were given about the death of the American actor and former partner of Farrah Fawcett, but O’Neal was diagnosed with chronic leukemia in 2001 and prostate cancer in 2012. Ryan O’Neal, father of actress Tatum O’Neal, starred in the classic 1970 romantic film, Love Story, alongside Ali MacGraw.
O’Neal appeared in titles such as What’s Up and Doc, and became one of the most famous performers of the seventies, working with figures such as Barbara Streisand and working with filmmakers such as Stanley Kubrick and Peter Bogdanovich
Ryan O’Neal’s career in Hollywood
Born in Los Angeles, California, Ryan O’Neal was an athletic young man and it did not cross his mind to be an actor. He actually started out as a boxer, but then his family moved to Germany. It was there that young Ryan began working as an extra, which began his desire to become an actor. Upon his return to the United States, in the 1960s, he tried his luck on television, until he got the opportunity to participate in the series Peyton Place, which launched him to fame.
Ryan O’Neal began to make a name for himself with Mia Farrow, to make a meteoric leap into cinema with the acclaimed film Love Story’ (1970) with Ali MacGrawwhich earned seven Oscar nominations, including his as lead actor.
Two years later, would star in the comedy What’s Up, Doc’ directed by Peter Bogdanovich, in which he played a young music teacher who meets the eccentric young Judy (Barbra Streisand), with whom he left countless crazy situations that still exist among film lovers.
O’Neal and Bogdanovich would reteam in Paper Moon (1973), where, along with Madelyn Kahn, he demonstrated his versatility as a comic and moving actor at the same time.
He was married to the actresses Joanna Moore (1963-1967) and Leigh Taylor-Young (1967-1974) and in 1981 he began a courtship with the famous Farrah Fawcett.star of the series Charlie’s Angels (Charlie’s Angels, in Spanish), with whom she broke up in 1997. From that relationship, her son Redmond O’Neal, also an actor, was born.
However, their union was marked by O’Neal’s alleged infidelities, addiction problems and an alleged lack of control over his temper that also affected his career. The actor gradually lost relevance in Hollywood until he was relegated to sporadic work in the nineties, such as the feature film ‘The Man Upstairs’ (1992) alongside Katherine Hepburn, or the comedy-thriller film ‘Zero Effect’, directed by Jake Kasdan.
“I will share my father’s legacy forever. I won’t be stopped by outside voices saying negative things. If you decide to speak badly about my father, even if you have no idea what you are talking about, your attention will be drawn,” his son Patrick stressed in the statement this Friday.
In 2012, three years after Farrah Fawcett died of cancer, O’Neal published her memoir ‘Both of Us: My Life with Farrah.’in which he gave his version of the bond he had with the female icon and tried to channel his family relationship after a long estrangement with his daughter, the Oscar-winning actress Tatum O’Neal.
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