LOS ANGELES, (Reuters) – Actor Ryan O’Neal, the 1970s Hollywood heartthrob who starred in such films as the smash-hit tearjerker “Love Story,” screwball comedy “What’s Up, Doc?” and “Paper Moon,” the movie that also launched his daughter’s movie career, died on Friday at age 82.
The performer’s death was announced by his son Patrick O’Neal in an Instagram post. No cause of death was given.
O’Neal, also known for his long-time relationship with the late actress Farrah Fawcett, revealed in 2012 that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, though he said then that he was expected to make a full recovery.
O’Neal, a Los Angeles native who trained as an amateur boxer before taking up acting, made his showbiz breakthrough in 1964 when he landed the role of Rodney Harrington in the hit ABC prime-time television soap opera “Peyton Place.”
The actor is perhaps best known for his Oscar-nominated star turn opposite Ali MacGraw in the 1970 romantic drama “Love Story,” a box office sensation adapted from Erich Segal’s popular novel of the same title.
A key line of dialogue from the film became one of Hollywood’s most memorable catch phrases: “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” It spawned a poorly received 1978 sequel, “Oliver’s Story,” co-starring O’Neal and Candice Bergen.
Ryan also scored a major success in the 1972 romantic comedy “What’s Up, Doc?” co-starring Barbra Streisand and directed by Peter Bogdanovich, who also directed O’Neal in the 1973 hit “Paper Moon,” which co-starred the actor’s then-young daughter.
Her debut role in the Depression-era drama as a precocious, cigarette-smoking orphan earned Tatum O’Neal an Academy Award at the age of 10 for best supporting actress.
She appeared with her father again in the 1976 Bogdanovich comedy “Nickelodeon,” along with Burt Reynolds.
Tatum O’Neal and her younger brother Griffin ended up living with their father after their parents divorced in 1967 and their mother, the actor’s first wife, Joanna Moore, lost custody due to alcohol and drug abuse.
But Tatum O’Neal claimed in a 2004 memoir, “A Paper Life,” that she suffered years of parental abuse and fits of jealousy from her father, and that he introduced her to drugs as a youngster, leading to an estrangement of nearly 25 years.
According to Tatum O’Neal, she and her brother were left to care for themselves when her father moved in with Fawcett, the “Charlie’s Angels” television star.
