Tatum O'Neal

American child star of the '70s who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1973 for her performance as a smoking, smart-mouthed 9-year-old con-artist in Paper Moon, in which she co-starred with her father. She was the youngest person ever to receive the award. She went on to make Bad News Bears (1976) and Little Darlings (1979).

The daughter of actor Ryan O'Neal and Joanna Moore, she was a teenage rebel until she met tennis ace John McEnroe in 1984. They were married in August 1986 after their first baby, a son, was born. Their third child and first daughter, Emily Katherine, was born May 1991. Her mother, Joanna Moore died of lung cancer on 22 November 1997 in Indian Wells, California.

Waging an ongoing battle with booze and drugs from the age of 10, she entered a rehab in 1995 and again on 27 October 1996 for a 21-day program in Wernersville, Pennsylvania. The news media reported another rehab stay in July 1999. Due to her drug problems, McEnroe got custody of the kids, Kevin, Sean and Emily.

In July 2002, Tatum was three months into staying clean and sober in a dedicated attempt to get her life back on track. She was attempting to stay close to her dad also in a healing of four decades of love-hate, as her dad had been battling leukaemia for the past year.

Her tell-all autobiography, A Paper Life, was released in mid-October 2004. In the book O'Neal alleged that she was molested by her father's drug dealer when she was 12. She also alleged physical and emotional abuse by her father, much of which she attributed to drug use. She also detailed her heroin addiction and its effects on her relationship with her children. Her father denied the allegations.

In May 2005 an insurance company sued her claiming she caused a fire in her Manhattan apartment in April 2004 by her reckless, careless and negligent actions. The company sought repayment of the $75,000 it had previously paid her in damages.