Though “Love Story” was a pop culture sensation and the biggest box office hit of O’Neal’s career, his most enduring screen performance was opposite his daughter, Tatum O’Neal, in the 1973 comedy-drama “Paper Moon.” In the film, Tatum plays in orphan called Addie and Ryan O’Neal plays a con artist called Moses Pray, who is suspected of being Addie’s biological father. Recalling the production in the 2011 reality series “Ryan and Tatum: The O’Neals,” Ryan connected the film with his own admitted shortcomings as a father to Tatum:
“The director [Peter Bogdanovich] insisted she wasn’t my daughter. The director insisted that my character, Moses, never thought for a second that this was his daughter. So he wanted me to make sure that I didn’t think of her as my daughter. And maybe it never wore off.”
Both Tatum O’Neal and Griffin O’Neal have described their father as being physically and emotionally abusive to them in their childhoods. In 2007, a fight broke out that culminated in Griffin swinging a poker at his father and Ryan firing a gun at him in response. O’Neal was estranged from his three eldest children for many years. Speaking to Vanity Fair in 2009, he said he preferred it that way: “I was in touch with them for years, and I was a mess. I’m not in touch with them now, and I’ve never been happier.”
Nonetheless, Tatum O’Neal told The Hollywood Reporter earlier this year that she was planning a reunion with her father for the first time in three years. “I think he’s gotten a little bit better in his life,” she said. “I mean, he’s an amazing man, my dad, and I miss him terribly … I love my dad. I mean, I’ve had a hard life with my dad — but I still love him.”