I'm not sure how candid this memoir is - O'Neal comes across as a self centered idiot so I'm inclined to believe it. It details his relationship with Farrah Fawcett, which began when both had bloom as Hollywood stars - he pinched her off Lee Majors, saw his star go into decline and hers dip but then rise as a star of TV movies. We hear about his troubled relationships with Tatum and Griffin (Griffin is responsible for the death of Coppola's son, winds up in prison, both of them have drug problems) and the increasing problems with Redmond. Farrah sounds like a hippy earth mother until middle age hits. Both go off with other people then wind up with each other. Both get cancer - hers is fatal but he survives, to see their son wind up a crime happy basket case.
It's a fascinating car crash - O'Neal is smart enough to recognise how he's slipping, curses missing out on The Champ, The Bodyguard and First Blood. He doesn't talk about Bogdanovich at all, denies many claims made against him by his kids. He seems to spend a lot of time with his children but three troubled kids out of four is not a good ratio. Something wrong is going on.
O'Neal defends Farrah's weird appearance on Letterman and claims him hitting on Tatum O'Neal at the funeral was a joke. Maybe. At one point O'Neal wonders if he should even write the book, such is his pain that gets dredged up. Possibly he needed the money. I think it was more the attention. They are both so self centered.
We don't get many insights into the making of the films which is a shame I would have liked to have read it. O'Neal quotes from his journal - he should give some thought to publishing that journal.
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