Ryan O’neal Biography
MARITAL STATUS
Profession Actor
Birth name Charles Samuel Eldridge Patrick Ryan O’Neal III
Nationality American
Birth April 20, 1941 (Los Angeles, United States)
BIOGRAPHY
Son of a screenwriter and an actress, Patrick Ryan O’Neal, known as Ryan O’Neal , began on television in 1960 and made appearances in series for almost a decade. In 1969, he landed his first film role in Une si belle garce . But it was the following year that he suddenly gained notoriety when he played the lead male role in the film Love Story . The couple he formed with Ali McGraw became legendary and the film, a tragic love story, was immediately cult. The actor received an Oscar nomination for his performance.
He then notably starred opposite William Holden in Two Men in the West and then Barbra Streisand in Let’s Pack the Suitcase, Doctor? . In 1973, Peter Bogdanovich allowed him to star opposite his daughter, Tatum O’Neal , in Cotton Candy . Two years later, Stanley Kubrick offered him the title role of Barry Lyndon , where he played a character who was at once spineless, weak-willed and pathetic. His performance is so convincing that the public and the studios seem to shun him afterwards.
Indeed, despite the triumph of Love Story and the prestige of filming under the direction of Kubrick, Ryan O’Neal will never succeed in establishing himself subsequently. After participating in A Bridge Too Far , he played a mute driver in Driver by Walter Hill , opposite Isabelle Adjani . A character that will inspire that of Ryan Gosling in Drive . In 1978, he tried to return to the success of his debut by starring in Oliver’s Story , but this sequel to Love Story was a bitter failure.
From the 1980s, the feature films he made were mostly shunned by critics. In 1989, however, he returned to success thanks to the mini-series We Killed My Children , alongside his then partner, Farrah Fawcett . He stood out again in The Zero Method in 1998, and in Influences in 2002, where he opposite Al Pacino . Since the 2000s, he has mainly pursued his career on television, in series like Desperate Housewives , 90210 Beverly Hills – New Generation and Bones .
