Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neal's Love Story Was Anything But a Fairytale
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She was the dazzlingly beautiful actress whose iconic red swimsuit poster launched a million impure thoughts. He was the handsome, clean-cut actor who starred in Love Story, one of the biggest romantic tear-jerkers of all time. However, the love story between Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neal was anything but a fairytale.
The gorgeous but troubled couple were ultimately all-too-human, yet remained devoted to one another in their own way for three decades, until Fawcett died in 2009. O'Neal passed away at the age of 82 on December 8, 2023, according to his son Patrick O’Neal.
Fawcett, born in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1947, broke into show business through shampoo and toothpaste commercials in the 1960s, capitalizing on her beautiful teeth and hair. She soon graduated to television and film roles and along the way met Lee Majors, the future "Six Million Dollar Man," whom she married in 1973.
A supporting role in the film Logan's Run in 1976 drew the attention of producer Aaron Spelling, who cast her in the television series Charlie's Angels that year. Fawcett became the series' breakout star. That same year, she also posed in a red swimsuit for what became one of the best-selling posters of all time. Fawcett and her much-emulated feathered hair were everywhere in the late 1970s.
O'Neal was born in 1941 in Los Angeles to Patricia O'Neal, an actress with a handful of credits, and screenwriter Charles O'Neal, known for writing episodes of the early 1960s television series Lassie and The Untouchables. Their son, however, started out in the boxing ring, becoming a Golden Gloves boxer in 1956 and 1957, with an 18-4 record. Small parts on a variety of TV shows led to a role on the series Peyton Place and eventually to the starring role in Love Story that made him a household name. He also starred in Paper Moon with his daughter Tatum in 1973 and The Main Event with Barbra Streisand in 1979, among many other parts.
Fawcett and O'Neal met when Majors introduced his wife to his friend in 1981 and unwisely suggested they get together while he was working out of town. Fawcett and Majors divorced in 1982. By then O'Neal had already married actress Joanna Moore, and had son Griffin and daughter Tatum, before divorcing just four years later. He was then married actress Leigh Taylor-Young for seven years, and had a son Patrick with her, before divorcing. Fawcett and O'Neal never married, but had son Redmond in 1985.
As she embarked on a new relationship with O'Neal, Fawcett was already disillusioned with Charlie's Angels, which had quickly become a cultural phenomenon. As reported in Vanity Fair, Fawcett's assessment of the show was brutally honest: "'When the show got to be Number Three, I figured it was our acting,' she said. 'When it got to be Number One, I decided it could only be because none of us wears a bra.'"
Fawcett then did something unheard of at the time—she quit the hugely successful show after just one season. Determined to escape the sex symbol stereotype, Fawcett sought out more challenging acting roles and had a few notable successes. She earned four Emmy nominations in all, including for her performance as a bettered wife in The Burning Bed, and a Golden Globe nomination for her portrayal of a woman who takes revenge on her attacker in the film Extremities.
Although O'Neal earned an Oscar nomination for Love Story, his career sputtered and he struggled to fulfill his early acting promise. Some blamed substance abuse for his declining acting work and increasingly volatile temper.
The couple's stormy relationship weathered career missteps, erratic behavior, and family drama—Redmond, Griffin, and Tatum, and O'Neal himself, all waged high-profile battles with drugs and alcohol. But the last straw for Fawcett was walking in on O'Neal in bed with another woman in 1997, as the Daily Mail recounted in 2013.
Fawcett and O'Neal found their way back to one another in 2001 when O'Neal was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia. "We started over again, and this time we built it in a way that had foundation and trust," O'Neal told Vanity Fair. "Our son was happy. And Farrah was mature. She didn't get mad at me so easily."
Doctors were able to control O'Neal's cancer, but Fawcett wasn't so fortunate. Diagnosed with anal cancer in 2006, it spread to her liver. Fawcett died in 2009 at 62, but not before she filmed a video diary of her end-of-life battle, aired as Farrah's Story. Critics derided the documentary, which took an unflinching look at the actress' ordeal, as exploitative but it was made at Fawcett's insistence on sharing her experience with a disease that had received little attention in the media.
After Fawcett's death, O'Neal struggled to pick up the pieces of his life. In 2012, O'Neal published Both of Us: My Life with Farrah. The Hollywood Reporter noted O'Neal said writing the book was "cathartic," giving him an opportunity explain his life with Fawcett and "paint a clearer picture to everyone, including me."
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