Ryan O'Neal has spoken for the first time about his moving reconciliation with dying lover Farrah Fawcett — revealing that he cradled her in his arms as she finally succumbed to cancer.
In his emotional autobiography the Love Story actor recounts how a priest had been summoned to the hospital to marry them. But instead, the priest ended up performing the last rites.
O'Neal, who is fighting stage two prostate cancer, writes of saying goodbye to his on-off lover of 18 years: "After the priest leaves I lie down next to her, wrap my body around her to keep her warm and then take her hand. I caress her hand for hours. Her heart refuses to quit."
When doctors removed her from life support, the Charlie's Angels star, aged 62, quickly faded.
O'Neal says: "I'm left alone with my love. I take her hand. I can still feel her pulse but now it is fluttering. She's trying to let go. Her heartbeat slows, then disappears. Farrah slips into eternal sleep."
O'Neal, 71, based his book on diaries he kept throughout their turbulent relationship, saying: "She and I always kept journals. Ours was a wonderful but imperfect love. I'm a semi-nice guy but I was jealous, insecure, everything you don't want in a man."
He admits resorting to violence on occasion — including when they disagreed about how to raise their son Redmond, now 27 and in drug rehab.
He confesses: "Once she locks herself in the bathroom and I punch my fist through the door. A piece of wood hits her face, cutting her above the eye. I break a knuckle."
‘Block the blows'
A professionally trained boxer, he casually dismisses their physical altercations, saying: "Farrah and I did occasionally get physical when we fought. Neither of us possessed the emotional discipline to say, ‘Wait a minute, this isn't normal, we need help.' If someone is coming at me with fists flailing, my instinct is to block the blows, which is what I did with Farrah.
"Back then there was no YouTube, but if there had been and someone had shot footage of our skirmishes, it would have generated millions of hits not because of the violence but for the slapstick dance. I didn't see my behaviour as aberrant. In reality, most of the time it wasn't her I was lashing out at, it was my kids, the world, Hollywood, my agent, you name it. I'm a moody guy."
Seduce his daughter
In Both Of Us: My Life With Farrah, O'Neal tells of his anger at reports that he tried to seduce his actress daughter Tatum at Farrah's 2009 funeral. He writes: "Ever since she was a little girl Tatum and I would play this game pretending we'd just met. It was silly and sweet. So at the funeral I greeted her with my line from our little act to let her know how much I loved her. I wanted to make her smile. Someone overheard me and said I didn't recognise my own daughter."
He rejects claims by Tatum, 48, who is also currently in rehab for cocaine addiction, that he supplied her with drugs when she was 11.
O'Neal, who begins treatment for his own cancer after the book's release this week, says Tatum has read the book in rehab. "I sent it. She waited a week then texted her OK. She doesn't come off well.
"Tatum's complicated. I think she'll come out of rehab fine but, then, I thought that before."
In his emotional autobiography the Love Story actor recounts how a priest had been summoned to the hospital to marry them. But instead, the priest ended up performing the last rites.
O'Neal, who is fighting stage two prostate cancer, writes of saying goodbye to his on-off lover of 18 years: "After the priest leaves I lie down next to her, wrap my body around her to keep her warm and then take her hand. I caress her hand for hours. Her heart refuses to quit."
When doctors removed her from life support, the Charlie's Angels star, aged 62, quickly faded.
O'Neal says: "I'm left alone with my love. I take her hand. I can still feel her pulse but now it is fluttering. She's trying to let go. Her heartbeat slows, then disappears. Farrah slips into eternal sleep."
O'Neal, 71, based his book on diaries he kept throughout their turbulent relationship, saying: "She and I always kept journals. Ours was a wonderful but imperfect love. I'm a semi-nice guy but I was jealous, insecure, everything you don't want in a man."
He admits resorting to violence on occasion — including when they disagreed about how to raise their son Redmond, now 27 and in drug rehab.
He confesses: "Once she locks herself in the bathroom and I punch my fist through the door. A piece of wood hits her face, cutting her above the eye. I break a knuckle."
‘Block the blows'
A professionally trained boxer, he casually dismisses their physical altercations, saying: "Farrah and I did occasionally get physical when we fought. Neither of us possessed the emotional discipline to say, ‘Wait a minute, this isn't normal, we need help.' If someone is coming at me with fists flailing, my instinct is to block the blows, which is what I did with Farrah.
"Back then there was no YouTube, but if there had been and someone had shot footage of our skirmishes, it would have generated millions of hits not because of the violence but for the slapstick dance. I didn't see my behaviour as aberrant. In reality, most of the time it wasn't her I was lashing out at, it was my kids, the world, Hollywood, my agent, you name it. I'm a moody guy."
Seduce his daughter
In Both Of Us: My Life With Farrah, O'Neal tells of his anger at reports that he tried to seduce his actress daughter Tatum at Farrah's 2009 funeral. He writes: "Ever since she was a little girl Tatum and I would play this game pretending we'd just met. It was silly and sweet. So at the funeral I greeted her with my line from our little act to let her know how much I loved her. I wanted to make her smile. Someone overheard me and said I didn't recognise my own daughter."
He rejects claims by Tatum, 48, who is also currently in rehab for cocaine addiction, that he supplied her with drugs when she was 11.
O'Neal, who begins treatment for his own cancer after the book's release this week, says Tatum has read the book in rehab. "I sent it. She waited a week then texted her OK. She doesn't come off well.
"Tatum's complicated. I think she'll come out of rehab fine but, then, I thought that before."
