American actor Ryan O’Neal, who also trained as an amateur boxer before beginning a career in acting in 1960, has died at the age of 82. In 1964, he landed the role of Rodney Harrington on the ABC nighttime soap opera Peyton Place. It was an instant hit and boosted O’Neal’s career. He later found success in films, most notably in the romantic drama Love Story (1970), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama, Peter Bogdanovich’s What’s Up, Doc? (1972) and Paper Moon (1973), which earned him a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon (1975), in which he portrayed the titular character, Richard Attenborough’s A Bridge Too Far (1977), and Walter Hill’s The Driver (1978). From 2005 to 2017, he had a recurring role in the Fox television series Bones as Max, the father of the show’s protagonist.
O’Neal married his first wife, actress Joanna Moore, in 1963. They had two children before separating in 1966. His second marriage was to actress and his Peyton Place co-star Leigh Taylor-Young, with whom he had a son. They remained friends after divorcing in 1973. O’Neal was in a relationship with actress Farrah Fawcett from 1979 to 1997. The relationship was tumultuous due to his infidelity and volatile behavior. Fawcett ended the relationship after she discovered O’Neal in bed with actress Leslie Stefanson. O’Neal and Fawcett reunited in 2001 and were together until her death in 2009. He had romances with Ursula Andress, Bianca Jagger, Anouk Aimée, Jacqueline Bisset, Barbra Streisand, Joan Collins, Diana Ross, and Anjelica Huston. According to his daughter Tatum O’Neal, he also had an affair with Melanie Griffith. O’Neal had four children: Tatum O’Neal and Griffin O’Neal with Moore, Patrick O’Neal with Taylor-Young, and Redmond James Fawcett O’Neal with Fawcett. For a while he was John McEnroe’s father-in-law, as the latter was married to Tattum.
He struggled with drug & alcohol problems. In 2007, O’Neal was arrested for shooting at Griffin, which he claimed was in self-defense; the charges were dropped. He infamously hit on Tatum at Fawcett’s funeral, not recognizing her as his daughter. In 2001, O’Neal was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). In April 2012, O’Neal stated he had been diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer. He later stated it was stage 2.