A Paper Life

by O'Neal, Tatum

• ISBN13: 9780060540975
• ISBN10: 0060540974
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-09-23
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

The sensational memoir by one of Hollywood's most talented and turbulent leading ladies--filled with stunning revelations--is an inspirational true tale of survival and triumph against all odds. Photos.

Author Biography

Tatum O'Neal made her screen debut as a pint-size con artist in the 1973 film Paper Moon, costarring with her father, Ryan O'Neal, and winning that year's Academy Award for best supporting actress. She has been acting on and off ever since, notably in such memorable movies as The Bad News Bears (1976) and Basquiat (1996). Married at age twenty-two to John McEnroe, she is the mother of three children. She lives in New York City

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. viii
Prologue: Ryan's Daughter	p. xiv
Dorothy, aka Joanna	p. 9
The Ranch	p. 22
The Good Life	p. 34
Paper Moon	p. 42
The Oscar	p. 53
The Bet	p. 66
Dear Fanny	p. 76
A Bridge Too Far	p. 88
9897 Beverly Grove Drive	p. 98
Circle of One	p. 112
A Certain Fury	p. 121
Johnny Mac	p. 135
John's Cure	p. 146
The Wedding	p. 157
Two for the Road	p. 167
The Colony	p. 181
R-e-s-p-e-c-t	p. 193
Coming Undone	p. 207
The Last Party	p. 220
Woman on the Run	p. 230
The Rabbit Hole	p. 240
Getting Straight	p. 250
Free Fall	p. 262
The Comeback	p. 271
Epilogue: Tatum's Time	p. 282
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

A Paper Life

The story of paper moon reflects my childhood, but italso closely parallels my mother’s and strangely foreshadowsmy daughter’s. Three generations of women: we all lost ourmothers early in life -- the first literally, to death; the secondvirtually, to addiction; and the third, my daughter, temporarily,when I succumbed to familiar demons. It is a cycle that I’mdetermined to break.

My mother was born, like Addie, in the heart of the GreatDepression, not in Kansas but in Americus, Georgia. Theelder of two daughters of Henry and Dorothy English Cook,she was named for her mother but later christened herselfJoanna. A letter from her cousin Libba that I discovered afterher death depicts her early childhood as cozy: rocking on theold porch swing, sitting by the potbellied stove, sliding downthe banister at her grandmother’s.

She was the only one not in the car when her fatherswerved off the road because her mom fell asleep on hisshoulder, plunging down a sandy embankment into a ravine.Both her mother and her baby sister, Virginia, died instantly.Libba’s letter recalls, in haunting detail, how she got the news:“We were on the playground. . . . My ma had come to school.

You had all visited the day before. And Momma kept saying,‘The pillow I put in my stroller for the baby to sit in had an imprintof the little body in it.’”Henry, my mother’s father, was badly hurt but lingered for ayear before dying of a ruptured spleen—or, she always believed,of a broken heart. So, at age six, my mother became an orphan.For a time she was farmed out to live with her maternalgrandmother, who was confined to a wheelchair with anosteoporosis-like condition. She was also addicted to morphine,prescribed by the town doctor, making her the firstknown link in my family’s chain of drug dependence.Even in that environment, my mother managed to bloom.She was pretty and vivacious, with a million-dollar smile, andso talented at singing and playing the piano that she became astar at church. By the time my mother reached her early teens,however, her grandmother had grown too feeble and impoverishedto raise her. She was adopted by a wealthy local family,who saw her through high school then sent her off to AgnesScott College near Atlanta, which was one of the top women’sschools in the South.I’ve heard rumors that she was molested by a member ofher adoptive family, but my mother never spoke of it. Sherarely mentioned her teenage marriage to Willis Moore, ofwhich her lifelong last name was the only trace. Southernwomen of her era were bred to smooth over unpleasantness,but denial in my mother ran as deep as her love for amphetamines.So I came to know her through a scrim of pictures andletters, lies and secrets.

She was extraordinarily beautiful, with blond hair,a perfect heart-shaped face, huge green eyes, and lush fulllips. She had a smoky, seductive voice (which Emily and I bothinherited) warmed by her southern lilt. Winning a beauty contestbrought my mother to Hollywood in the mid-1950s, whereshe was discovered at a cocktail party and signed to Universal.A flood of contract assignments followed, in films rangingfrom such minor classics as The Last Angry Man and Walk onthe Wild Side to teen screamers like Monster on Campus.Among them was A Touch of Evil, the last Hollywood filmdirected by Orson Welles, which has been hailed as “thegreatest B movie ever made.” It opens with one of the most famousshots in movie history—nearly three and a half minuteslong—tracking a car with a bomb in its trunk through a seedyMexican border town. Finally the car explodes, killing thedriver; and a corrupt, drunken sheriff (played by OrsonWelles) tries to pin the crime on bystanders Charlton Hestonand Janet Leigh. Though my mother is on screen only for ashort time in the film, she is masterful as the victim’s daughter.My father always said that my mother was the best actor inthe family, but it was only after she died that I came to recognizeher power.

In A Touch of Evil my mother had to darken her hair toavoid out-blonding Janet Leigh. After hours, she had to dodgeCharlton Heston, who once lured her to his room, seeminglyto seduce her. Later Elvis Presley hit on her with even less finesse. While making Follow That Dream in 1962, he actuallytried to break down her door. But my mother had no use forthe idol of millions of teenagers, telling an interviewer, “He’s abore.”

After the mid-1960s, she worked mainly in television. She was featured in most of the major series of the day: Gunsmoke,The Rifleman, Bat Masterson, Wagon Train, Maverick,and The Virginian—westerns dominated the top twenty -- aswell as The Fugitive, Perry Mason, Route 66, 77 Sunset Strip,Bewitched, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. She became a semiregularon Alfred Hitchcock Presents, usually cast as a southernbelle, and had a recurring role on the Andy Griffith Show asPeggy McMillan, the sheriff’s girlfriend.

On one of those shows, she met my father, then just astruggling actor. He wasn’t a dream-chasing migrant like shewas but a native Angeleno, with a mother hellbent on propellingher two sons to stardom. My grandmother even pushedher youngest, my uncle Kevin, to study ballet and take growthhormones to groom him for the screen.

Patricia Callaghan, my grandmother, had sacrificed herown acting career to raise her children. She can still be seen inThree Came Home, the true story of a woman’s survival in aJapanese prison camp, starring Claudette Colbert. Born of aRussian mother (who was named Devonovitch and rumoredto be Jewish) and an Irish father, she was raised in Torontoand San Francisco and instilled with a gloves-wearing, hair-ina-bun propriety that made her the polar -- and harshly disapproving-- opposite of my mother.

My dad’s father, Charles O’Neal, was more accepting andshared my mother’s southern roots and jolly temperament. Bornin North Carolina, he attended the University of Iowa, wherethanks to his accent, classmates dubbed him “Blackie,” and thenickname stuck. He met my grandmother in a San Diego theatertroupe but discovered a new vocation -- screenwriting -- after publishing a short story in Esquire.My grandpa achieved modest success with screenplays for such movies as The Seventh Victim, Cry of the Werewolf, TheMissing Juror, and Montana in the 1940s and 1950s; then hemoved on to writing for TV series, including The Untouchables,The Californians, and Lassie. Also the author of twonovels, he developed one into the 1952 musical Three Wishesfor Jamie, which starred John Raitt (Bonnie’s father) and AnneJeffreys and ran for several months on Broadway.

A Paper Life. Copyright © by Tatum O'Neal. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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