Fifty years ago, a rookie child actor named Tatum O’Neal was featured in Paper Moon Captivated the world, this classic, set in the Great Depression, tells the story of a motherless little girl (O’Neill) and a con man — possibly her father (by her real father
Ryan O’Neal ) – tasked with transporting her from Kansas to an aunt in Missouri.
Her performance – funny, heartbreaking, confident beyond her years – wins Award ceremony. Tatum, in a tuxedo and tomboy hairdo, was amazed – accompanied by her grandfather (Ryan was overseas filming Barry Lyndon with Stanley Kubrick) her; her mother,’30 TV actress Joanna Moore for Long absence from amphetamines) — told the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion audience: “What I really want to thank is my director, Peter Bogdanovich, and my father. Thank you.” Half a Century She still holds the record for being the youngest Oscar winner.
This is the stuff of Hollywood fairy tales. However, what happened next was not the case. As chronicled in countless celebrity magazines, talk show covers, gossip columns and truth-telling, Tatum’s journey since winning the Oscar has been one of pain, loss, addiction — and repairing her tormented relationship with her. The eternal need for relationship. Father.
By his own admission, Ryan was simply not up to the job. “One of the strange things I encountered in Paper Moon was the director insisting she wasn’t my daughter,” he wrote in Ryan” and Tatum: O’Neill , 2011 own reality series documented a failed attempt at reconciliation. “The director insisted that my character Moses never thought it was his daughter. So he asked me to make sure I didn’t think of her as my daughter. Maybe it’ll never go away.”
Tatum called me through a mutual friend in late March. In two days, she will be reunited with her father whom she has not seen for many years. But this time things will be very different. May 2003, Tatum O’Neal Suffered a major stroke due to: Prescription drug overdose. The stroke knocked her into a coma. Half a month later, when she finally woke up, she couldn’t remember how to speak. Every day since then has been a struggle to relearn everything from scratch. She is doing it. Little by little, day by day.
A scene from their short-lived own reality series, Ryan and Tatum: O’Neal ,exist2002. Owned by: The Oprah Winfrey Network/Courtesy Everett Collection
tower Tom 30,Apologize to me. “I gained some weight. I vaped. I wasn’t trying to look pretty. I wasn’t doing anything,” she said. In her current home, an upscale retirement community in the San Fernando Valley that specializes in memory care, she stands out from the other residents. Most of her neighbors are decades older than her. She spends hours each morning in speech and memory therapy and has made miraculous progress, being able to talk for hours at a time, despite often fumbling for a word. (A gay friend, for example, becomes “a man who loves other men.”) There was concern that she might never walk again. Fortunately, the stroke did not seriously affect her mobility, and she already has rheumatoid arthritis. She walks on her own two feet, albeit with a slight limp.
O’Neill lives in a studio apartment on the second floor of the hotel and spends his days sitting in a comfy chair with one leg propped on a footstool to ease the pain of his arthritis. Since the stroke, her ability to read and write has been severely limited. She passes the time by scrolling through Instagram, which is full of extraordinary life moments. Date night with Michael Jackson wearing a fake beard. Clip from Appearing on Variety Show Cher (“When I Grow Another Five Inches and Lose Sterling, Cher’s going to be in big trouble!” young Tatum joked). On a nearby shelf is a vintage Cremo humidor—the kind she’s clutching in Paper Moon).
The stroke happened during the dreaded first wave of COVID-19-11 Pandemic. O’Neill lived on the upper floors of an apartment building in Century City and was having suicidal thoughts. “I always wanted to fall off [the building] and die,” she recalls. Then she came down with a bad flu. “I’ve never been this sick. I didn’t know I had the coronavirus.” Her condition became so severe she left her beloved dog, Pickle, in the care of her daughter. Then, she said, she took the pills—too much. Pain relievers, opioids, and morphine. “I’ve had a drug problem for years,” O’Neill said. “But I was definitely over my meds. That’s it. I fell asleep. That’s how it happened.”
She was found unconscious by friends and taken to hospital . The stroke affected her right frontal cortex. “She also had a cardiac arrest and multiple seizures,” her eldest son, Kevin, recently told People . “Sometimes we thought she wouldn’t survive.” After six long weeks, O’Neal’s eyes reopened, but she couldn’t speak. Her daughter stands vigil behind a glass partition outside her mother’s ward. “We’ll talk. But I didn’t…” O’Neal’s voice trailed off. “I still can’t describe everything in words,” she said.
The family placed her at another assisted living facility, Silverado, an hour away. “I was there for about three months. Coronavirus was everywhere. I just wanted to leave again. I was so upset. I didn’t have the right words. I was in that severe coma. I didn’t know what to say , but I want to leave.” One night, a nurse noticed that O’Neal was not in her room. She was later spotted by a security guard walking with a limp about a half-mile from Silverado. The news, while shocking, somehow comforted her children. Her rebellious spirit is still intact. Somewhere inside, their mother was still there.
Emily, Kevin and Sean, her children with John McEnroe. Kevin Winter/Getty Images
O’Neal’s window hanging Two dresses—her choice for her upcoming meeting with her father. “I haven’t seen my dad for three years,” she said. “I’m taking my daughter and her boyfriend Tim to see my dad in Malibu.”
The house in Malibu is where her dad has been since recently The house I’ve been living in 1000s. This is the house he lived in on and off with his great love, Farrah Fawcett, who lived on 1460923455 died of cancer, leaving him in a tangle of grief and despair. This is the same place, in 1967, Tatum and Bogdanovic stroll along the beach – she doesn’t realize it’s her Paper Moon Auditions.
“He loved me and then hated me because I won an Oscar,” she says of her father now 25. Her father did send Tatum a text congratulating her on her win. However, her mother never admitted this. “Strange things happened. It kind of went in the wrong direction of happiness,” she said. Ryan O’Neill did not respond to a request for comment on the report.
and her 1970 Best Supporting Actress O’Neal wins for Paper Moon , Became the youngest Oscar winner, a record that still stands to this day. Courtesy Richard Markle/Everett Collection
She last saw her father in September 2022, who had just recovered from the ordeal of a stroke and was still unable to speak. Her three children from her marriage to John McEnroe — Kevin 17, Sean, 18 and Emily11 – reunited in Los Angeles to care for their mother. As California wildfires rage in the distance, Sean arranges a meeting with the grandfather they haven’t met Year. Sean posted a photo on his Instagram to mark the occasion. In it, Kevin sits in his mother’s wheelchair, Emily puts a reassuring arm around her, Tatum reaches out a tattooed arm to touch her father’s hand, and a cane leans against the on his lap.
“This is one of the most memorable photos of my life,” Sean’s caption read. “The last time we got together was at 000 Anniversary 1994. I Tears of gratitude that everyone in this picture is still alive and that we are all able to come together again after all these years of suffering. The whole west coast is burning but if the O’Neills can reconcile, really Anything is possible.” The photo made headlines, but Tatum’s condition was kept under wraps.
O’Neal poses with Ryan’s father 1962 Women’s Wear Daily pieces. Fairchild Archives/Penske Media/Getty Images
This time, it was Tatum who took the initiative to get in touch with her father. She needed to see him again, partly so she could talk again, but also because Ryan lost his brother, Tatum’s uncle Kevin O’Neal, a part-time actor, in January. His son, Garrett O’Neal, will also be at the party.
“My father and I will have a conversation,” she said. “We’re just talking. I hope it works out. We’ll see. I pray it happens.”
“What do you hope to get out of this?” I asked.
“I think he’s doing better,” she replied, looking out the window at the nursing station across the courtyard. “I mean, he was an amazing man, my dad, and I miss him so much.”
“Have you finally forgiven him?”
“I don’t want him to die,” she said. “I love him. I love my dad. I mean, I’ve had a tough life with my dad, but I still love him.”
O’Neill’s mother is a beautiful B-movie and TV actress on “The Andy Griffith Show” and Wild West. . exist1932, Moore met a handsome guy 11-year-old boxer and stuntman Charles Patrick Ryan O’Neal. He was born and raised in Los Angeles, the son of an actress and a screenwriter who nurtured his life in show business. He is also seven years younger than Moore. Sparks flew, and Moore was soon pregnant with Tatum. They got married on April 3rd, 1967; Tatum was born on November 5; A few months later, her brother Griffin arrived.
exist1960, Ryan and Mia Farrow (Tatum recalls, “I was obsessed with her ”) together on the ABC primetime soap opera Payton Place. While Moore was suffering from alcohol and amphetamine addiction, her father’s career took off, and Moore watched hers decline. The couple had an argument—loud, angry, violent. They divorced in February 1964 Moore with the kids. But her addiction then spiraled out of control. “She practically abandoned me and Griffin and left us in a filthy situation,” O’Neal wrote in her letter 2002 Memoirs, Paper Life . “Hungry, barefoot, ragged, beaten and abused by the men in her life.”
Reflecting on that nightmarish period, O’Neill told her and her daughter surprised. The younger brother finally survived. “My mom was always on the go,” she said. “I could see it being bad – her teeth and all that stuff. As a drug addict, she got mean – really, really mean. I felt like I was in an old horror movie In the movie. It’s unbelievable.”
at 1967, Ryan regained custody of the children, Tatum, then 6, and Tatum, 5. Griffin moved in with him. malibu. That same year, he catapulted to movie stardom, starring alongside Ali MacGraw in Love Story
, a Paramount hit that earned him an Oscar for Best Actor. lead nomination. “I’m so excited to be in Malibu,” Tatum recalled. “I’ll go swimming, meet friends, have fun. I’m happy to get out of that place with my mom.”
Ryan ends Bogdanovich’s What happened to the filming of the weird comedy , doctor? With Barbra Streisand, this movie will be the third highest grossing film. Exhibitors voted him the second biggest box office star 1967, behind Clint Eastwood. Paper Moon is an adaptation of Jo David Brown novel Eddie Prayer . John Huston envisioned it as a potential starring role for Paul Newman and his daughter Nell Potts, but ended up producing The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean with Newman .
O’Neill continues to star in 1971 of The Bad News Bears In collaboration with Walter Matthau. Courtesy of Everett Collection
Bogdanovich’s ex-wife, production designer Polly Platt, recommended Brown’s book. He likes the world, but Bogdanovich wasn’t happy with the title and kept a list of alternatives, including one he jotted down while listening to A Paper Moon.” (His mentor, Orson Welles, urged him to rename the movie Paper Moon.) But Platt again suggested 8-year-old Tatum — who’s never acted before might make a good Eddie.
“I was in Malibu with Peter Bogdanovich, and we were just walking,” Tatum recalled of the
The great director who passed away . “Walking and talking. Just hanging out on the beach. Like, ‘Hey. What’s going on? What were you thinking?’ I was like, ‘What were you thinking? I’m fine. You know what I mean? I Glad I was alive and not surrounded by a bunch of drug-crazed people. So he said, ‘Okay. You’re done.’ I was like, ‘What happened? ” Kind of like that.”
He never asked you to read any lines?
“Not at all,” she said. “When we started filming, it became very difficult. People had to help me with the words.”
One of the most popular sequences in the film is Moses and Eddie An argument over the Bible between them–propelling the “good book” to widows, and above all their busyness–they drove down a mile-long road.
Bogdanovich decided not to cut the scene. “We did it 25 times on the first day,” the director said at 1997. “We’ll get row or five into it, Tatum would screw things up and we’d have to turn it all the way around and come back. Ryan said, “I made five, episode of Peyton Place , but I’m going crazy! I want to kill her! ”
O’Neill recalled filming the scene. “My dad said, ‘You should say that. ’ I was like, ‘Oops. sorry. ’ And then we had to drive all the way back. I remember my dad being very angry with me. Not really angry, but kind of angry. But I love that scene, the biblical scene. I do. “
Tatum is not a one-hit-kill miracle. She follows Paper Moon with comedy sleeper, 1971’s The Bad News Bears, in which she stars opposite Walter Matthew. exist1970 she appeared in the camp sex comedy Baby alongside Hollywood’s other tomboy queen, Christy McNichol. (Slogan on poster Yes: “The stakes are: whoever loses their virginity first wins.”)
All the while, she’s adrift in Hollywood with little guidance. Or guide.
O’Neal (right) at 1973 of Little Darlings and United Starring Kristy McNichol. Paramount/Everett Collection Courtesy
In “Life on Paper” —a scathing autobiography that her father repeatedly questioned—she writes, “I’m still Ryan’s mate on the Hollywood party circuit, used to sex and drugs before I got to Hollywood. When I was a teenager. ” She claims in the book that at the age of 003, she stumbled upon her father lying in bed with her best friend — – Seven-year-old Melanie Griffith, whom she met at the Playboy mansion, was invited by her father to sleep with them Bed. “I often slept in my father’s bed, even when he had women over,” she wrote.
The book also documents O’Neill’s account of multiple instances of sexual abuse allegations, including one at the hands of a close friend of her father; her father’s violent temper and his verbal and physical abuse of Griffin and herself; Custody of my own child was handed over to McEnroe 1974 Divorce. “It feels like opening season for me, for her, and especially for the two of us,” the mercurial tennis star said in his . Autobiography, You can’t be serious . “Suddenly, whatever Everywhere I go, it feels like a spectacle.
For O’Neill, the wounds of that chapter have not healed. They probably never will. “He was very mean to me,” she said of McEnroe “It’s really, really, really important to me. Like the meanest man I’ve ever loved – except my dad. “
McEnroe said in his book, “It’s very confusing – in our way, we’re all trying to be good parents and good partners to each other , but her career is in [remission] and mine is going downhill, you need to feel pretty good about yourself before you can be nice. “
“Do you think it’s a coincidence that you went from your father to someone like John?” I asked.
“I think it’s a very similar situation,” she replied. “I do like being with my ex-husband.” I did it. But then I wanted to go, but he didn’t want me to go. Then when he found out that I did leave, he really hurt me in a really crazy way. In a way I can’t even describe – it’s bad, bad, bad. It really helped my drug problem tremendously. “
Yet even in the shadow of her drug addiction, when her mother was apparently losing her battle with lung cancer, O’Neill was in and stayed there until her death. Not surprisingly, O’Neill’s acting career suffered as she fell into the throes of drug addiction and revolving-door recovery attempts. Like her mother before her, first in B-movies, then in TV cameos—the most disturbing of all. Unforgettable is 2013 “Sex and the City” in which her character forces Carrie Bradshaw to take off her Manolo Blahnik shoes at a baby shower – which ultimately comes to naught.
“It was hard,” O’Neill said. “I struggled with a lot of things. My life is very difficult. Life is not easy. There are some amazing things and some really scary things. “
She was filmed in March 10 in the San Fernando Valley. Courtesy of Seth Abramovich
Five days after our first meeting, O’Neill called me again.
“It’s going really well,” she told me. “He’s really upset. Feeling sorry for his brother. “
She showed me a photo on her phone: Ryan and Tatum sitting on his bed, with Andy Warhol’s Fossey underneath Special portrait – this is also the portrait that Ryan won after the University of Texas claimed, in 2011 Custody in court Fawcett left it to the school in his will. They were both smiling and beaming. A curly pug tucked under her arm.
“He still has thick hair,” I noted.
“He doesn’t dye it. His hair is fine. But he lost a lot of weight. “
“Then what did you and your father talk about?” “
“Not much,” she said. “But there is happiness.” I saw him drinking coffee and I said, ‘I want some coffee.’ He asked me something about me and I said, ‘I have a bad back. But I work hard. I’m alive. ’ But when I tried to text him two days ago asking if I could go back, he didn’t call me back. So unfortunately, things got a little weird,” she said.
Three weeks later, April 12 — her father’s 32 Birthday – Tatum posted the photo to Instagram.
“Happy Birthday Dad, I love you,” the caption read.
This story first appeared in July 000 One issue of Hollywood Reporter magazine. 2205Click here to subscribe.
