Love Story star Ryan O’Neal has died at the age of 82, his son has revealed.
“So this is the toughest thing I’ve ever had to say but here we go. 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 shared with fans on Instagram in a series of posts featuring three sunsets.
Ryan famously dated Farrah Fawcett between 1979 – 1997; they reconnected in 2001 until she passed away in 2009.
“I hope the first thing he brags about in Heaven is how he sparred 2 rounds with Joe Frazier in 1966, on national TV, with Muhammad Ali doing the commentary, and went toe to toe with Smokin’ Joe,” Patrick added in a second and third post. “YouTube has it and trust me, it’s so awesome. Ryan by a majority decision. He loved boxing. And hitting the bag. My dad is a proud member of the West Coast Boxing Hall of Fame.”
He continued: “Ryan never bragged. But he has bragging rights in Heaven. Especially when it comes to Farrah. Everyone had the poster, he had the real McCoy. And now they meet again. Farrah and Ryan. He has missed her terribly. What an embrace that must be. Together again.I’ll miss you dad. I love you. We love you.No one told a story better than Ryan O’Neal.”
© Images Press“This is very difficult for my wife Summer and I, but I will share some feelings to give you an idea of how great a man he is. My father Ryan O’Neal has always been my hero. I looked up to him and he was always bigger than life. When I was born in 1967 my dad was already a TV star on Peyton Place. That’s where he met my mom Leigh Taylor-Young, and about 9 months later (give or take a date night or two) I was born,” Patrick also shared.
“My dad became an international movie star with Love Story at the beginning of the 1970’s, a decade he absolutely crushed by starring in movies like What’s Up, Doc?, Paper Moon, Barry Lyndon, A Bridge Too Far, The Main Event, and The Driver.”
“He is a Hollywood legend. Full stop. The growth spurt of the first name Ryan can be traced back to my dad. That’s a fact,’ Patrick concluded.
© Matthew SimmonsHe did not share any further details ofh is cause of death.
In 2001 Ryan was diagnosed with chronic leukemia, and in 2021 with prostate cancer.
Ryan’s work in Paper Moon earned him a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, while in recent years he had a recurring role in Bones, between as 2005 to 2017, as Max, the father of Emily Deschanel’s Temperance Brennan.
© FOXBorn Charles Patrick Ryan O’Neal in Los Angeles, he trained as a young man to become a boxer but the family moved to Munich, Germany, when his father, a TV writer, received a job there.
In Germany, his mother got him a role on a local TV series, Tales of the Vikings, and he fell in lov with the craft, making his first TV appearance in the US guest starring on an episode of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis in 1960.
He went on to find film stardom throughout the 1970s but his fame fluctuated as he picked a series of middling roles, and he found himself in the limelight for his romantic relationships, not his work.
© United ArchivesHe married actress Joanna Moore, in 1963. They had two children – actress Tatum O’Neal, who became the youngest person ever to win an Oscar for her performance in Paper Moon co-starring her father, and a son, Griffin – before separating in 1966; Ryan was given custody of their children.
Tatum, now 60, and her father had a rocky relationship but in 2001 they began to restore their relationship after 25 years, and their reunion played out on TV in the shirt-lived docuseries Ryan and Tatum.
© BettmannRyan’s second marriage was to actress Leigh Taylor-Young, with whom he welcomed Patrick, and then Ryan was in a relationship with actress Farrah Fawcett from 1979 to 1997.
But it was volatile due to his infidelity and behavior; Fawcett ended the relationship after she discovered him in bed with actress Leslie Stefanson. But they reunited in 2001 and were rtogether for another eight years before her death.
He also dated Ursula Andress, Bianca Jagger, Anouk Aimée, Jacqueline Bisset, Barbra Streisand, Joan Collins, Diana Ross, and Anjelica Huston.
