Actor Ryan O'Neal, who started his career appearing in numerous television programs, and then had a breakout role in television's first prime time soap Peyton Place, has died. He was 82 years old. One of his sons, sportscaster Patrick O'Neal, announced the death today. His father had suffered from chronic leukemia for many years and also had prostate cancer.
O'Neal played one of the central characters (Rodney Harrington) in the above-mentioned soap, being originally a love interest for the female lead, Mia Farrow. Farrow had left the series early on after she married Ol' Blue Eyes, while O'Neal continued on the series until almost the end of its run in 1969. (All of the episodes have been uploaded to YouTube. I watched the entire series from YouTube, having missed the original run as I was just a kid then, and I enjoyed the program. It held my interest.) By that time, he had already started hitting the big time on the big screen. Among his films were Love Story, Barry Lyndon, and Paper Moon, co-starring his daughter, Tatum. He had four children in all: Griffin, Tatum, Patrick, and Redmond. He was married twice to actresses and divorced both times, with his first wife being Joanne Moore (died in 1997), and his second wife Leigh Taylor-Young (now 78). He was also noted for a more-or-less 30-year relationship with the late actress Farrah Fawcett (died in 2009), who was the mother of his son Redmond. In between or during those relationships, Ryan was in the gossip columns constantly, as he was quite the whatever-you-want-to-call-it. By that I mean "ladies' man" or "cad" or just plain "asshole," depending on your point of view. Like Warren Beatty, who was just a few years older than Ryan, he seemed to have screwed every actress in Hollywood. There were also a number of people who simply didn't like Ryan, believing he was some kind of narcissist who neglected his children for much of their lives.
I will leave it to the shrinks to diagnose Ryan. However, I will mention one of his most notable performances was off-screen, when he had a famous confrontation with Farrah's college sweetheart, Greg Lott, who had resumed a relationship with her in the late 1990s (noted in the media then) and lasted until the time of her death in 2009. This confrontation occurred shortly after her death. Here is some video of Lott and the man who Farrah fondly called "that fucking fat fuck from the beach":
This encounter didn't stop Ryan from milking his relationship with Farrah long after her death despite them not being a couple when she died. It seemed he wanted this to appear as a real-life version of Erich Segal's wretched novel.
Snip:
Patrick Ryan O’Neal was born on April 20, 1941, in Los Angeles, the older son of novelist-screenwriter Charles “Blackie” O’Neal (The Three Wishes of Jamie McRuin) and actress Patricia Callaghan. He competed in Golden Gloves events in L.A. in 1956 and 1957 and compiled a boxing record of 18-4 with 13 knockouts, according to his website.
In the late 1950s, O’Neal and his family moved to Munich, and he became infatuated with the syndicated TV series Tales of the Vikings, which shot in Europe and was produced by Kirk Douglas‘ company.
I forgot he had been a boxer. Good thing for Lott, who was once a star college football player, Ryan had long been out of shape physically.
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