Their real-life father-daughter love story may have been bittersweet, but Ryan O’Neal and his daughter Tatum created movie magic together in Paper Moon (1973), a cinematic achievement about which both O’Neals were justifiably proud. It’s also one of director Peter Bogdanovich’s finest films, lovingly crafted in close collaboration with his longtime creative and life partner Polly Platt, a brilliant artist in her own right.
For Paper Moon, Platt’s production design perfectly evokes the Depression-era 1930s in a black-and-white palette perfected by the creative pair on their breakthrough film The Last Picture Show in 1971, which had sent the young director’s career into the stratosphere and made him a permanent A-List celebrity and auteur.
Not surprisingly, director Bogdanovich received all the credit and the kudos, while Platt struggled to keep working in Hollywood after the pair split (he left her for Last Picture Show leading lady Cybill Shepherd). Their breakup is dramatized in Nancy Meyers’ and Charles Shyer’s underrated comedy Irreconcilable Differences (with Ryan O’Neal ironically playing the egotistical director character based on Bogdanovich).
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| Ryan O'Neal as Rodney Harrington in Peyton Place |
Good-looking and well-built, with a captivating smile and loads of Irish charm, O’Neal had been an amateur boxer before setting out to become an actor. His first big success was as a nighttime soap heartthrob, playing Rodney Harrington on ABC’s Peyton Place opposite Mia Farrow.
In 1970, O’Neal achieved worldwide stardom with his performance in the blockbuster tearjerker Love Story with Ali MacGraw. Following a deft comedic turn opposite Barbra Streisand in What’s Up Doc directed by Peter Bogdanovich, O’Neal and the director teamed up again for Paper Moon, an on-the-road buddy movie about a crooked traveling salesman with a 9-year-old child in tow, set in 1930s Kansas and Missouri. While preparing the script with O’Neal, Bogdanovich met Ryan’s precocious daughter Tatum—and the rest is film history.
A traveling Bible salesman and con artist, bilking wealthy widows out of just a few precious dollars to stay afloat during the darkest days of the Depression, the aptly named Moses Pray is a benign crook with a hidden sensitive side, beautifully played by O’Neal. When he attends the funeral of an old girlfriend and finds that she has left a daughter behind, he is talked into giving the girl a ride to her new home in St. Joe, Missouri.
Tatum O’Neal is winning in her career-defining role of the orphaned Addie, an unsentimental and tough-as-nails kid who has seen it all, smokes cigarettes and is distrustful of all adults, except for President “Frank D” Roosevelt.
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| Tatum and Ryan hit the road |
Together, the O’Neals are magnificent in this film, displaying the brand of chemistry that only a father and daughter can share. Their constant sparring and rapid-fire repartee as the pair travel cross-country in a rickety convertible jalopy make this one of the most enjoyable ‘road pictures’ you’ll ever see. Ably supported by a bevy of wonderful 1970s character actors including Randy Quaid, John Hillerman and many other familiar faces, Ryan and Tatum take us on a memorable journey through Bogdanovich and Platt’s monochromatic 1930s midwest.
Madeline Kahn is pure comedic brilliance as the trashy but charismatic Miss Trixie Delight (supported hilariously by actress P.J. Johnson playing her reluctant maid Imogene), an erstwhile prostitute who latches onto Moses Pray in the hopes of a steady meal ticket. (Kahn and O’Neal’s chemistry as the absent-minded Howard and domineering Eunice in What’s Up, Doc had previously yielded comedic gold.)
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| Madeline Kahn as Miss Trixie Delight (aka 'Mademoiselle') |
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| P.J. Soles as Imogene |
For her performance in Paper Moon, 10-year-old Tatum O’Neal received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, alongside her costar Madeline Kahn, newcomer Candy Clark (American Grafffiti), Old Hollywood alum Sylvia Sidney (Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams) and 12-year old Linda Blair.
Some say that Linda Blair was the odds-on favorite to win the Supporting Actress trophy for her startling and terrifying transformation from innocent Regan MacNeil to the monstrous demonic entity Pazuzu of The Exorcist —but it was revealed that all of Blair’s raspy, obscenity-filled vocal performance had actually been performed by veteran actress Mercedes McCambridge (Giant, Suddenly Last Summer), who received no credit at all in the film’s initial release. With Blair’s shocking performance proven to be largely makeup, special effects and dubbing, the revelation opened the door for Tatum O’Neal to become the youngest-ever Oscar winner, which she remained until 10-year-old Anna Paquin was named Best Supporting Actress for The Piano decades later.
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| The Best Supporting Actress of 1973 |
In the ’70s, tomboyish girls were all the rage—this was the era of Jodie Foster and of Kristy McNichol (with whom Tatum would share the screen in the 1980 film Little Darlings). In Paper Moon, Tatum played against her feminine and vulnerable side, and dressed and was mistaken for a boy (think Jackie Coogan as The Kid or Jackie Cooper in The Champ). She even wore a tux to the Academy Awards that year.
But her superstardom proved to be short-lived. She did have a hit playing a similarly tough cookie in The Bad News Bears with Walter Matthau. But International Velvet, a sequel to the 1944 classic National Velvet which made Elizabeth Taylor a star, was a flop, despite the talents of Tatum, Christopher Plummer and Nanette Newman (The Stepford Wives) in the Taylor role. As a teenager and young woman, Tatum O’Neal proved to be a bit less interesting on screen than she had been as a child.
Her adult career never got off the ground, sidetracked by a tumultuous marriage to John McEnroe and a substance abuse problem. Her memoir, A Paper Life, is more bitter than sweet as she recounts the Hollywood upbringing that left her psyche scarred; obviously, as a father and family man, the troubled Ryan O’Neal left something to be desired.
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| A child star for the '70s—I don't think Shirley Temple smoked... |
Something changed in their relationship after his daughter won that Oscar. Papa O’Neal was never even nominated for an Academy Award in his long career, though he was recognized and honored by the Golden Globes and other film societies and worked far more frequently than his Oscar-winning daughter. According to Tatum, he constantly denigrated and belittled her greatest accomplishment. An absent father, he also preferred romancing beautiful actresses to parenting—and the addition of Farrah Fawcett to the O’Neal family unit seemed to exacerbate the tensions. His relations with his other children, particularly son Griffin, were equally contentious; ex-boxer O’Neal had a violent temper that flared at the slightest provocation. It was, by all accounts, a very dysfunctional family.
Over the next 40+ years, their relationship was embattled, to say the least, as evidenced by a 2011 reality series that documented Ryan and Tatum’s attempts to reconcile. After battling leukemia and other health issues for decades, Ryan O’Neal passed away in 2023, still largely at odds with his family.
Today, Tatum works only sporadically in films and television but will be forever remembered as one of the most exceptional child stars, alongside luminaries like Coogan, Cooper, Shirley Temple and Hayley Mills.
At least Paper Moon has presumably given her some solace, a moment of father-daughter camaraderie and creative collaboration that is emblazoned on film in perpetuity.
This is an entry in the Hit the Road blogathon hosted by The Midnite Drive-In. I look forward to taking the ride with my fellow classic movie bloggers this weekend.
