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Ryan O’Neal and Farrah Fawcett had a love story for the ages. But it wasn’t exactly a fairytale, either.
Their love endured for the better part of three decades, until the Charlie’s Angels star tragically died on June 25, 2009 from cancer. She was 62. On Dec. 8, the Love Story star died “peacefully … with his loving team by his side supporting him and loving him.” He was 82.
Farrah and Ryan never wed, though he popped the question twice — the first time was in the early 1980s before their son, Redmond was born on Jan. 30, 1985. And then again just before Farrah died. He was by her side the entire time at the hospital, sleeping in a cod next to her bed.
How they met (Farrah’s husband, Hollywood star Lee Majors, introduced them), the affair they commenced (it happened very quickly) and the devotion they had to each other was both alluring and heart-rending. While there were plenty of ups (she called him the love of her life) there were also plenty of downs (they first split in 1997 when she caught him in bed with another actress).
Keep reading as ET takes a look back at Farrah and Ryan’s three-decade relationship.
- Farrah and Ryan Met in 1979
Ryan was in Toronto hanging out in his hotel room when Farrah’s husband, The Six Million Dollar Man star Lee Majors, phoned him and invited him to come out for a drink. It was Ryan’s then 15-year-old daughter, Tatum, who ran into Lee and told him, “You know, I’m Ryan’s daughter.”He responded, “Oh yeah, where is he?”It’s Farrah.Ryan joined Lee for a game of racquetball and then accepted an invite to stay for dinner. At that point — meeting her for the first time, mind you — Ryan was already infatuated with Farrah. In fact, according to his book, Ryan said he toured their expansive home, including Lee’s walk-in closet where he stored some 75 pair of boots. But all Ryan could think of was, “Where does Farrah keep her stuff?”It was apparent Farrah also was fascinated by Ryan. So much so that the next day — when Ryan’s supposed to fly to Las Vegas to watch his friend fight Sugar Ray Leonard — it’s Farrah who asked him, “Well, isn’t that fight on TV?”Ryan said it was, and she proceeded to invite him over to watch it with them. When she greeted him at the door the day of the boxing event, it’s “with this winsome smile.” She then coyly asked him, “Aren’t you glad you didn’t go?”Not long after, Lee’s in Canada for work when he phoned Ryan and implored him to call Farah to make sure she’s OK. In fact, Lee went as far as to suggest to Ryan that he take Farrah out for dinner one night. About a week later, he invites her to a concert in Santa Monica. They also have dinner that night.
But that’s not all.
According to Both of Us, Ryan also invited her to a star-studded party with a guest list that included Gregory Peck and Kirk Douglas. They ended up talking and kissing that night until after 3 a.m., this according to Ryan’s journal entry dated Oct. 9, 1979. Two days later, they attended the concert in Santa Monica. That night, Ryan says they made love for the first time.
- Major Breakups Ryan was twice divorced. He married actress Joanna Moore in 1963, and they were married for four years. They shared two children, first welcoming daughter, Tatum, in 1963, and then son, Griffin, the following year.Joanna was also a Hollywood star. She was best known for her work in Monster on the Campus and Walk on the Wild Side, among other projects. But the pair got divorced in 1967.
That same year, Ryan married actress Leigh Taylor-Young. They welcomed one son, Patrick, in 1967, but the couple would go on to divorce in 1974. Ryan would never wed again. He and Farrah welcomed their only child, son Redmond, in 1985.
The inevitable occurred with Farrah and Lee — they got divorced on Feb. 16, 1982. When they met in 1968, Lee was a major Hollywood star and Farrah was an unknown model who shortly after found stardom after landing the iconic Charlie’s Angels role. Her life completely changed, and so did the way she viewed her role as a wife.
“When Lee married me, he married a very compliant person who just wanted to cook his meals, clean his house and be dependent,” she told People in 1979.
At 82, Majors told People in 2019 that their lives as Hollywood stars were so busy in the early part of their marriage that it was nearly impossible to see each other.
“There was a year or so when I think I saw her two weeks in one year,” he told the magazine at the time. “It’s very difficult with careers like that. Working 14 hours a day, both of you, and the days went by.”The dissolution of marriage was not amicable, as the divorce proceedings dragged on for some 30 months.
Things reached a boiling point when she wanted their Beverly Hills mansion and he reportedly wanted a share of her endorsement earnings. In his book, Ryan states that Farrah got to keep the house, but only after she bought Lee out of it.
But long before their separation and subsequent divorce, Farrah and Lee’s marriage was anything but on solid foundation.
“They were saying the marriage was over, and I was saying they were terrific together,” Ryan recalled to Vanity Fair in a 1991 profile. “She said, ‘Lee, remember when we were first married, and we were in Nevada, and you’d leave me in some dinky cabin and go to a bar? You’d tell me to get undressed and get in bed and wait for you, but you never came back.’ His answer was ‘Same man now as I was then.'”Lee would go on to marry Playboy Playmate Karen Velez in 1988. They welcomed three children together before divorcing in 1994.
Farrah and Ryan’s relationship
There was a lot love between them but there was also a lot of drama. On the one hand, Farrah and Ryan always played to the cameras by showing plenty of PDA on the red carpets. And he was very protective of her.
“When Ryan and I were just starting out and we were in the height of passion, he had convinced me not to wear makeup or worry about my hair — he said I was beautiful without all that,” she once told Vanity Fair. “And we ran into Jay Bernstein, my former manager. Ryan said, ‘How does she look?’ Jay said, ‘To tell you the truth, a little tired.’ I thought Ryan would jump over the table and strangle him.”
On the other hand, they were brutally honest about the peaks and valleys within their relationship.
“We fight,” she reportedly once said. “But my opinion is valid and I stand behind it now.”Vanity Fair summed it up this way in a 2009 profile of the couple:
The saga of Fawcett and O’Neal is a quintessential Hollywood story…
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