With his blond good looks and blue eyes, Ryan O’Neal, who has died aged 82, was often cast as a callow, boy-next-door type in the 1970s films that made him internationally famous. Back then, his clean-cut onscreen image offered few clues as to the notoriety his private life would gain. But his troubled relationship with three of his children, Tatum, Griffin and Redmond, his drugtaking and a tempestuous relationship with the actor Farrah Fawcett would come to overshadow his long, fluctuating acting career.
As the well-groomed Oliver Barrett IV, a Harvard law student, he falls for Jennifer Cavalieri (Ali MacGraw), a working-class music student, in Love Story (1970). They marry against his wealthy father’s wishes, and she dies of cancer. The two young stars created some chemistry, and with the tagline “Love means never having to say you’re sorry”, the tearjerker was a huge success. But despite noteworthy performances in Paper Moon (1973) and Barry Lyndon (1975), O’Neal was never to equal the popularity that Love Story conferred on him.
O’Neal was born in Los Angeles into a movie family. His father was Charles “Blackie” O’Neal, a novelist and screenwriter whose film scripts included the subtle horror movie The Seventh Victim (1943) and the Randolph Scott western Return of the Badmen (1948). His mother, Patricia (nee O’Callaghan), appeared in a few films, but mostly acted on stage. » | Ronald Bergan | Saturday, December 9, 2023
