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Ryan O’Neal, star of ‘Love Story’, ‘Paper Moon’ dies at 82

Published:Monday | December 11, 2023 | 12:06 AM
Los Angeles Angels TV play-by-play announcer Patrick O’Neal, right, poses with his father, actor Ryan O’Neal before a baseball game against the Oakland Athletics in Anaheim, Calif., Saturday, May 21, 2022. O’Neal, who was nominated for an Oscar for t
AP
Los Angeles Angels TV play-by-play announcer Patrick O’Neal, right, poses with his father, actor Ryan O’Neal before a baseball game against the Oakland Athletics in Anaheim, Calif., Saturday, May 21, 2022. O’Neal, who was nominated for an Oscar for the tear-jerker ‘Love Story’ and played opposite his precocious daughter Tatum in ‘Paper Moon’, died on Friday,

LOS ANGELES (AP):

Ryan O’Neal, the heartthrob actor who went from a TV soap opera to an Oscar-nominated role in Love Story and delivered a wry performance opposite his charismatic nine-year-old daughter Tatum in Paper Moon, died on Friday, his son said.

“My dad passed away peacefully today, with his loving team by his side supporting him and loving him as he would us,” Patrick O’Neal, a Los Angeles sportscaster, posted on Instagram.

Attempts to reach O’Neal representatives were not immediately successful.

No cause of death was given. Ryan O’Neal was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2012, a decade after he was first diagnosed with chronic leukaemia. He was 82.

“My father, Ryan O’Neal, has always been my hero,” Patrick O’Neal wrote, adding, “He is a Hollywood legend. Full stop.”

O’Neal was among the biggest movie stars in the world in the 1970s, working across genres with many of the era’s most celebrated directors including Peter Bogdanovich on Paper Moon and What’s Up, Doc? and Stanley Kubrick on Barry Lyndon. He often used his boyish, blond good looks to play men who hid shadowy or sinister backgrounds behind their clean-cut images.

O’Neal maintained a steady television acting career into his 70s in the 2010s, appearing for stints on Bones and Desperate Housewives, but his longtime relationship with Farrah Fawcett and his tumultuous family life kept him in news.

Twice divorced, O’Neal was romantically involved with Fawcett for nearly 30 years, and they had a son, Redmond, born in 1985. The couple split in 1997, but reunited a few years later. He remained by Fawcett’s side as she battled cancer, which killed her in 2009 at age 62.

With his first wife, Joanna Moore, O’Neal fathered actors Griffin O’Neal and Tatum O’Neal, his co-star in the 1973 movie Paper Moon, for which she won an Oscar for best supporting actress. He had son Patrick with his second wife, Leigh Taylor-Young.

Charles Patrick Ryan O’Neal was born on April 20, 1941, and was the son of screenwriter Charles O’Neal and actor Patricia Callaghan O’Neal. O’Neal spent time as a lifeguard and an amateur boxer before finding his calling as a performer.