By Oscar-nominated American actor Ryan O’Neal has died at the age of 82. The news was revealed by his son Patrick O’Neal in an Instagram posting calling his father a “Hollywood legend. Full stop” and a man who was “always bigger than life” and “my hero”.
He said his father passed “with his loving team by his side supporting him and loving him as he would us.”
He initially trained as a boxer before becoming an actor and breaking out in 1964 with his role of Rodney Harrington on the ABC nighttime soap opera “Peyton Place”.
He went on to success in cinema with the lead in romantic drama sensation “Love Story” in 1970 which scored him an Oscar nomination. That led to leading roles in five other seminal films of the decade – Stanley Kubrick’s “Barry Lyndon,” Richard Attenborough’s “A Bridge Too Far,” Peter Bogdanovich’s “What’s Up, Doc?” and “Paper Moon,” and Walter Hill’s “The Driver”.
Other films included “Oliver’s Story,” “The Main Event,” “Partners,” “Irreconcilable Differences,” “Malibu’s Most Wanted” and “Fever Pitch”. In his latter years he had a recurring role in FOX’s “Bones” as the father of Emily Deschanel’s eponymous character.
The news of O’Neal’s passing comes in the wake of two cancer diagnoses – chronic leukemia in 2001 and prostate cancer in 2012.
He leaves behind ex-wife Leigh Taylor-Young and four children: Tatum, Griffin, Patrick, and Redmond.
Source: The Guardian
The post “Love Story” Actor Ryan O’Neal Has Died appeared first on Dark Horizons.
