Child star comes of age

Instead of going into real estate, O’Neal, now 43, began to revive her long-moribund career with a guerrilla-like zeal. The obstacles she faced were formidable: her career had pretty much evaporated after her marriage to tennis champion John McEnroe in 1986, and her reputation took a hit after they split in 1992 and she lost custody of their three children because of drug abuse. (She says she is now sober and in a relationship with Ron Castellano, a New York architect.)

O’Neal described how she browbeat Young into paying attention to her: “I called him and e-mailed him every day. I kept saying, ‘Hi! I’m here! Get me out there.’ ”

It was a far cry from her heyday, when she was named best supporting actress for her first movie, Paper Moon, in 1974.

Beginning with a guest shot on Sex and the City and achieving a certain crescendo when she waltzed live on Dancing With the Stars, O’Neal is, she maintained, “back in the game”.

“It’s not Oscar-worthy stuff obviously,” she conceded. “But it’s not bad for someone who got written off. Look at Helen Mirren. She proved you can have a huge success at any age.”

She now plays an embassy translator, who gets involved with an African-American man whose brother has Down Syndrome, in My Brother, a film that stars Vanessa Williams. “She was a little nervous,” said Anthony Lover, writer and director. “But when she was on, she was great.”

O’Neal admitted that her acting has been spotty over the years. “I was carrying around so much pain that I couldn’t let go and truly play a character.” She said she lost the baggage in 2004 after writing her autobiography, A Paper Life, in which she recounted a nightmarish life with her alcoholic and neglectful mother, the years with her sometimes violent father; and her unhappy marriage to McEnroe. “As soon as that book came out, an umbilical cord was cut.”

Despite years of “inexplicable meanness” from her father, she said she hoped they would reconnect. O’Neal has been more successful repairing her relationship with McEnroe. The two reunited last fall to help their middle child, Sean, 19, get settled in his first year at college. Their son Kevin, 20, is a junior at an East Coast college. Their daughter, Emily, 15, divides her time between her parents.

O’Neal said her children are “thriving” and that as a result she plans to ratchet up her efforts to get back into bigger movies.

“As bad as Hollywood can be,” she said, “it’s also pretty great, in that it gives you the chance to come back and redeem yourself.”

Dana Kennedy