Tatum O’Neal Net Worth

Tatum O’Neal's Quotes

• It was on my dad's TV when I lived with him. When I moved out I said, 'Sorry, Dad, but you have to part with my Oscar.'
• [Recalling one of the few happy memories from her turbulent childhood living with her mother Joanna Moore] To know my mother was to love her--and I do, now that I have accepted an elemental truth: she was 100 percent crazy. Too crazy, as it turned out, to withstand the combustible mix of alcohol, pills, two babies eleven months apart, and a challenging husband. She wasn't always in a fog though. There were times when she would pull herself together and I remember loving her then so much. She used to tell me a bedtime story about a beautiful white horse that would come to me--it's hooves rhythmically beating clip clop clip clop--and be my angel horse. As I fidgeted and twisted in the bedclothes, gnawing at my nails and sucking my thumb, she would stroke me and soothe me with the promise that the angel horse would carry me away, fly me off into the sky. I would fall asleep to the sound of her soft southern voice, intoning clip clop, clip clop.
• [Writing about her mother, actress Joanna Moore] She was extraordinarily beautiful, with blond hair, a perfect heart-shaped face, huge green eyes, lush full lips. She had a smoky seductive voice (which my daughter Emily and I both inherited) warmed by her southern lilt. Though my mother is on screen only for a short time in Touch of Evil (1958), she is masterful as the victim's daughter. My father Ryan O'Neal always said that my mother was the best actor in the family, but it was only after she died, that I came to recognize her power.

Interesting Facts about Tatum O’Neal

1. Ex-husband John McEnroe won custody of their children after a prolonged custody battle.
2. Daughter of actors Ryan O'Neal and Joanna Moore.
3. Older sister of actor Griffin O'Neal. Also the older half-sister of sportscaster Patrick O'Neal from her father's second marriage (to Leigh Taylor-Young) and Redmond O'Neal from her father's relationship with Farrah Fawcett.
4. Youngest person to ever win a competitive Oscar (Best Supporting Actress, Paper Moon (1973))
5. Disapproved of her father actor Ryan O'Neal's relationship with Farrah Fawcett.
6. Highest paid child star in history when she made The Bad News Bears (1976).
7. Michael Jackson claimed she was his first girlfriend and by all accounts his first big love. Tatum denies this in her autobiography, saying all that happened was that he briefly kissed her without permission when she was 12 and he was 17.
8. Recently published her memoirs, "A Paper Life", that exposes her troubled childhood, long battles with her father and Farrah Fawcett, her sexual encounters with Melanie Griffith, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Prince Albert of Monaco, her explosive union with John McEnroe and the bitter custody suit over her three children with the tennis great. [2004]
9. Her memoirs "A Paper Life" debuted at #4 on the New York Times Bestseller List.
10. She was named Female Star of the Year by the National Association of Theater Owners in 1976
11. According to her autobiography "A Paper Life", she was not named after her paternal grandmother as was widely rumored for years but actually named after jazz pianist Art Tatum.
12. Was voted #14 on VH1's The Greatest: 100 Greatest Kid Stars (2005).
13. Was cast as Blythe Hunter in Wicked Wicked Games (2006) when original choice, Sean Young, was fired following apparent clashes with the show's producers.
14. One of a very few performers to win an Oscar for their debut performance.
15. Her mother, Joanna Moore died on November 22, 1997 of lung cancer.
16. Granddaughter of Patricia O'Neal and Charles O'Neal.
17. Niece of Kevin O'Neal.
18. Was extremely vocal about being voted off of Dancing with the Stars (2005) before the disastrous Master P.
19. Disapproved of her father Ryan O'Neal's relationship with Farrah Fawcett so much so that she would speak about it to the tabloids even though she was just a child. However, in her 2004 memoir "A Paper Life", she wrote fondly of her, calling her kind and gentle, taking care of her when she was hurt.
20. Friendly with Jennifer Blanc-Biehn and Michael Biehn.