bibliography
NNDB
This is a beta version of NNDB
Search: for

Ryan O'Neal

Ryan O'NealAKA Charles Patrick Ryan O'Neal

Born: 20-Apr-1941
Birthplace: Los Angeles, CA

Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Paper Moon

Before he was famous, Ryan O'Neal worked as a lifeguard and fought as an amateur boxer. He once served two months in jail for a fistfight. He broke into show business as a stuntman on a low-budget late-1950s syndicated TV series, Tales of the Vikings. His first speaking role came in an episode of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, and his first fame came on the early-1960s TV western Empire with Richard Egan and Charles Bronson. He played one of the primary characters on the long-running prime time soap opera Peyton Place with Mia Farrow.

His first movie was Elmore Leonard's The Big Bounce with Van Heflin, and he was Oscar-nominated for the six-hanky weeper Love Story with Ali MacGraw. He earned good reviews as the rising young Irishman in Barry Lyndon with Patrick Magee, the scheming hustler in Paper Moon with his daughter Tatum O'Neal, and the bumbling professor in the near-perfect screwball comedy What's Up Doc? with Barbra Streisand. His last successful film as a leading man was the boxing comedy The Main Event with Streisand in 1979.

Through the 1980s his career stalled with, among other failures, the unfunny comedy Irreconcilable Differences with Shelley Long and 8-year-old Drew Barrymore and the heavy-handed drama Tough Guys Don't Dance with Isabella Rossellini. By 1991 he was back on television, co-starring in the sitcom Good Sports with his longtime lover Farrah Fawcett. In his most recent film he played Jamie Kennedy's exasperated father in the hip-hop comedy Malibu's Most Wanted.

O'Neal's father was Charles "Blackie" O'Neal, a novelist and screenwriter who wrote the film adaptation of I Love A Mystery starring Nina Foch and the complicated but scary The Seventh Victim starring Tom Conway. Later in his career he wrote for TV's The Untouchables. His mother was actress Patricia O'Neal, who worked mostly on stage but had small roles in Rosemary's Baby and What's Up, Doc?, and should not be confused with Oscar-winner Patricia Neal.

O'Neal's first wife was actress Joanna Moore, best remembered for a supporting role in Orson Welles' classic Touch of Evil with Charlton Heston and The Last Angry Man with Paul Muni, but her career faded into alcoholism after their divorce. His second wife was Leigh Taylor-Young, O'Neal's co-star on Peyton Place and in The Big Bounce, and more recently seen as Katherine Barrett Crane on the steamy soap Passions. Though they never married, his longest romantic relationship was with Fawcett. She left him in 1997 after 18 years when she discovered he was having an affair, but they reconciled after O'Neal was diagnosed with leukemia on his 60th birthday. He has since recovered from the disease, and cared for Fawcett until her 2009 death from cancer.

His brother Kevin O'Neal was an actor, mostly in small roles on TV shows and bit parts in films, until leaving the business in the mid-1970s. His son Griffin O'Neal was also an actor, with featured roles in such cinema as Assault of the Killer Bimbos and Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go to College, until quitting in the early 1990s. Another son, Patrick O'Neal, is still an actor, most recently seen in a supporting role in Wild Hogs with Tim Allen. Oscar-winning Daughter Tatum O'Neal has resumed her acting career since her divorce from tennis star John McEnroe, but she is estranged from her father, claiming that he beat her when she was a child.

Father: Charles O'Neal (writer, b. 6-Jan-1904, d. 29-Aug-1996)
Mother: Patricia O'Callaghan (actress)
Brother: Kevin O'Neal (former actor)
Wife: Joanna Moore (actress, m. 1963, div. 1967, one son, one daughter, d. 1997 cancer)
Daughter: Tatum O'Neal (actress, b. 5-Nov-1963)
Son: Griffin O'Neal (former actor, b. 28-Oct-1964)
Wife: Leigh Taylor-Young (actress, m. 1967, div. 1973, one son)
Son: Patrick O'Neal (actor, b. 14-Sep-1967)
Girlfriend: Barbra Streisand (diva, dated in mid 1970s)
Girlfriend: Melanie Griffith (actress, dated in mid 1970s)
Girlfriend: Diane von Furstenberg (fashion designer, dated in 1970s)
Girlfriend: Juanita Brown (actress, dated in 1970s)
Girlfriend: Bianca Jagger (groupie, dated in late 1970s)
Girlfriend: Diana Ross (diva, dated in late 1970s)
Girlfriend: Farrah Fawcett (dated and cohabited, 1979-97, one son, dated 2001-05, cohabited 2006-09)
Son: Redmond James O'Neal (b. 30-Jan-1985)
Girlfriend: Leslie Stefanson (actress, b. 1971, dated 1997)

    High School: University High School, Los Angeles, CA

    Drug Possession: Methamphetamine charged Malibu, CA (15-Oct-2008)
    Drug Paraphernalia Possession charged Malibu, CA (15-Oct-2008)
    Risk Factors: Leukemia, Prostate Cancer

    TELEVISION
    Bones Max Keenan (2006-)
    Miss Match Jerry Fox (2003-05)
    Good Sports Bobby Tannen (1991)
    Peyton Place Rodney Harrington (1964-66)
    Empire Tal Garrett (1962-63)

    FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
    Knight of Cups (8-Feb-2015)
    Malibu's Most Wanted (10-Apr-2003) · Bill Gluckman
    People I Know (11-Oct-2002) · Cary Launer
    The List (23-Dec-2000)
    Epoch (2000) · Allen Lysander
    Coming Soon (17-Apr-1999)
    Zero Effect (30-Jan-1998) · Gregory Stark
    An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn (29-Sep-1997)
    Hacks (19-Sep-1997) · Dr. Applefield
    Faithful (3-Apr-1996) · Jack
    The Man Upstairs (6-Dec-1992)
    Small Sacrifices (12-Nov-1989)
    Chances Are (10-Mar-1989)
    Tough Guys Don't Dance (12-Sep-1987)
    Fever Pitch (22-Nov-1985)
    Irreconcilable Differences (28-Sep-1984)
    Partners (30-Apr-1982)
    So Fine (Sep-1981)
    Green Ice (1981)
    The Main Event (27-Jul-1979)
    Oliver's Story (Dec-1978)
    The Driver (10-Jul-1978)
    A Bridge Too Far (15-Jun-1977)
    Nickelodeon (21-Dec-1976)
    Barry Lyndon (18-Dec-1975) · Barry Lyndon
    Paper Moon (9-May-1973) · Moses Pray
    The Thief Who Came to Dinner (Mar-1973)
    What's Up, Doc? (9-Mar-1972)
    Wild Rovers (23-Jun-1971) · Frank Post
    Love Hate Love (9-Feb-1971)
    Love Story (16-Dec-1970)
    The Games (9-Jul-1970)
    The Big Bounce (5-Mar-1969)


New!
NNDB MAPPER
Create a map starting with Ryan O'Neal
Requires Flash 7+ and Javascript.

Do you know something we don't?
Submit a correction or make a comment about this profile



Copyright ©2019 Soylent Communications