Tatum O'Neal

Tatum O'Neal was the youngest person to ever win an Oscar (10 years old) for her performance in Paper Moon (in which she stole the spotlight from her father, Ryan). What a start for a career! And what a hurdle to overcome too!

She went on to some other big successes like The Bad News Bears and Nickelodeon but soon floundered in the waves of adulthood. She was not getting prettier, just older. She was not becoming an elegant looking woman or even a interesting looking one. Plus, her acting style was not suited for the young adult roles she pursued.

I must admit that I never liked Tatum's body. When she took her top off for Richard Burton in Circle of Two I cried out in the theater for her to "put it back on!". Not that her body was bad... just that it needed a few more hours in the oven. It had an "uncooked" look to it.

Tatum soon found herself at the bottom of a rising market for young stars. She decided to retire from acting to marry tennis pro John MacEnroe, the bad boy of tennis. How appropriate! Her father was the bad boy of Hollywood (yes, long before Sean Penn, Ryan O'Neal was beating the shit out of people). I guess she wanted a little bit of daddy more than daddy would give... so she picked another hothead to wed and bed.

Oohhh! That was not nice. Not nice at all. I had better apologize for that before I get into too much trouble. But seriously, you can see the similarities and need for anger management with those two guys. Typical woman... daddy was bad so she must marry a bad guy. Or... a wannabe bad guy. Tennis? Sheesh. Gimme baseball and a bat and I'll knock the shit out of John MacEnroe any day of the week.

Anyway... back on track here. Tatum tried her hand at acting every three or four years after that. Not much of a stir. She had three kids with John MacEnroe before she divorced him in 1994 after seven or so years of marriage. After a long and heated custody battle she lost custody of her kids to MacEnroe.

Hmmm. Now let me see... give the kids to Oscar winning mom or to Mr. Tennis Temper Tantrum? Hmmm... I wonder what the answer should be? Well... I know the answer and it is that Tatum had a substance abuse problem. That may well have been part of the issue there.

Note to self... if you want custody of your kids don't do drugs or alcohol. But you can swing the tennis racket at them and make them eat Hagast.

Where is she now:
Tatum underwent counseling for drug abuse and is working to get her career back on track. As of this writing she starred in the film "The Scoundrel's Wife" in 2002. She looks very different these days and it will be interesting to see if she can pull it off, acting wise. Nudity would be good too... considering the picture below! She certaintly looks fully cooked to me!

 UPDATE:

Most of youy know that Tatum is back in film and on television. You also probably know that in 2008 she got caught trying to buy drugs, giving very lame excuses of why. I just really don't have much to say about her. If you get a second chance in life you'd better take it and go with it, not mucking it up. Tatum has had more than her share of second chances. It's all up to her now.