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During the early 1970s, Hollywood had a plethora of attractive leading men such as Warren Beatty, Robert Redford, Kurt Russell, and Burt Reynolds. However, none of them possessed the pure and captivating beauty of Ryan O’Neal. He had a cherubic charm mixed with a touch of vulnerability, shown through his pouting, frowning, and occasional hint of femininity. Along with his dreamy male-lead appearance, he also exuded a sense of worldly sophistication and toughness.
In the movie The Thief Who Came To Dinner from 1973, there is a memorable scene where Ryan O’Neal’s character, a jewel thief, smoothly inserts himself into a high-society party. Jacqueline Bisset’s character is surprised and maybe even envious of his bold and slightly masculine appearance, which rivals her own beauty. She teases him by saying, “You’re too attractive to be skilled at anything.” He responds with a deadpan expression, “Skilled at what?” to which she retorts, “What else is there?” What else indeed?
In 1970, O’Neal captured the hearts of American women with his standout performance in Arthur Hiller’s Love Story. The film, a tear-jerking romantic drama, featured O’Neal as a privileged Harvard student who falls for a strong and resilient woman from a less privileged background, portrayed by the formidable Ali MacGraw. Their dynamic was unique, with MacGraw’s character being more assertive and resilient than O’Neal’s, who had been emotionally beaten down by his wealthy father. Through her sacrifice for him, O’Neal’s character learns to mature and finds a newfound sense of nobility. In the following decade, O’Neal starred in the somewhat underwhelming sequel Oliver’s Story, where he discovers a different kind of love with Candice Bergen.
O’Neal’s rise to fame was partly due to his sponsorship by Robert Evans, the head of Paramount Pictures, who was married to Ali MacGraw at the time. However, it was director Peter Bogdanovich who truly launched O’Neal’s career by casting him in two of his most successful films, showcasing O’Neal’s charm, humor, and romantic appeal.
In the 1972 film, What’s Up Doc?, O’Neal plays a stuffy music expert, sporting glasses similar to Cary Grant’s in Monkey Business. These glasses only serve to highlight his almost cartoonishly attractive appearance. His character has endearingly intellectual ideas about ancient humans’ ability to appreciate musical harmony. In the midst of a chaotic mix-up involving four identical bags, O’Neal becomes infatuated with the assertive Barbara Streisand.
His most remarkable film, however, was released a year later – the magnificent comedy Paper Moon set during the Great Depression, where O’Neal portrays a hustler who traverses the Midwest executing cons with the help of a nine-year-old accomplice pretending to be his innocent daughter (who may actually be his real daughter). This role was played by O’Neal’s own daughter, Tatum O’Neal.
The combination of Tatum and Ryan was both deeply sorrowful and amusing. Tatum appears much older than her age, making it surprising to witness her smoking a cigarette, while Ryan, despite his character’s cynical nature, retains a youthful appearance. O’Neal consistently exudes a delicate and attractive charm, often taking a submissive role to a female lead. Bogdanovich later discovered the same comical vulnerability in his leading man in the Hollywood film Nickelodeon.
Yet two more great 70s films were to put O’Neal into the movie pantheon of that decade: he grew up, just a little, to play the lead for Stanley Kubrick in his period drama Barry Lyndon, based on Thackeray’s novel about the roguish adventurer who comes to grief – his pulchritudinous looks were now part of the story. He was weak, venal, passive and his gorgeousness is convulsed with pain.
In Walter Hill’s The Driver in 1978, that butter-wouldn’t-melt face was deliberately impassive and opaque: he is the deadpan, imperturbable getaway driver whose almost childlike expression of calm is clouded only by his contempt for those who are not as professional as he is.
It is possible that O’Neal was never able to grow or change as a person, unlike Newman or Eastwood. However, during his peak years, he possessed an alluring charm and sex appeal, as well as a unique and endearing humor about his own striking good looks and the isolation and anxiety that often accompany beauty.
Source: theguardian.com
