Ryan O’Neal’s Cause of Death Revealed
A Los Angeles County death certificate for actor Ryan O’Neal details the cause of death for the Love Story star.
O’Neal died at age 82 on December 8 of congestive heart failure following years of cardiomyopathy, according to the certificate obtained by The Blast.
Congestive heart failure is a condition in which the heart has become congested and unable to pump properly, depriving the body’s other organs of oxygen-rich blood, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.
Cardiomyopathy, meanwhile, refers to any disorder affecting the heart muscle — with causes including alcohol abuse, high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, viral infections, and certain medicines — the medical organization reports.
As for his other health battles, O’Neal was diagnosed with chronic leukemia in 2001 and prostate cancer in 2012, per Deadline.
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Following the Bones alum’s death, his children Patrick and Tatum O’Neal paid tribute to him in public statements. “Ryan was a very generous man who has always been there to help his loved ones for decade upon decade,” Patrick wrote on Instagram. “Those same people are heartbroken today and will be for a long time.”
Tatum (pictured above), who starred with Ryan in Paper Moon and other films, told People that her father “meant the world” to her. “I loved him very much and know he loved me, too,” she added. “I’ll miss him forever, and I feel very lucky that we ended on such good terms.”
Mia Farrow, who joined Ryan in the ABC series Peyton Palace, eulogized her former costar on Instagram. “I was 18 when we made the pilot for Peyton Place,” she wrote. “He was several years older than me, happily married to a gorgeous actress, Joanna Moore, and they had a new baby (Tatum). He was handsome and confident and very, very funny! Sometimes he made me laugh so uncontrollably that we had to stop shooting.”
And Peyton Place costar Lee Grant remembered Ryan in an X post, writing, “Impossible to believe that Ryan O’Neal is gone. … An incredible talent, an incredible beauty. A gift of an artist we’re lucky to have so much of captured forever.”
