Who is Tatum Beatrice O'Neal?

Who is Tatum Beatrice O'Neal? The entertainment and acting world knows Tatum O'Neal asan American actress best known for her film work as a child actress in the 1970s. She is the youngest to win a competitive Academy Award, at the age of 10.

Family background

O'Neal was born November 5, 1963 in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of actors Ryan O'Neal and Joanna Moore, who had appeared in various motion pictures and television shows. Her brother, Griffin, was born in 1964. In 1967, her parents divorced and her father quickly remarried. Her father's marriage to actress Leigh Taylor-Young produced Tatum's half-brother, Patrick, but the union ended in divorce in 1973. Tatum has another half-brother, Redmond, from Ryan O'Neal's relationship with actress Farrah Fawcett. O'Neal's mother died in 1997 of lung cancer at age 63, after a career in which she had appeared in such movies as Walk on the Wild Side and Follow That Dream.

Career

Child actress

In 1974, Tatum O'Neal became the youngest person ever to win a competitive Academy Award. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year - Actress for her performance in Paper Moon. O'Neal played the role of Addie Loggins, a child con artist being tutored by a Depression-era grifter played by her father, Ryan. She was 10 years old at the time she won the award.
During her childhood and teenage years, O'Neal starred in notable films such as The Bad News Bears (1976) with Walter Matthau, International Velvet (1978) with Christopher Plummer and Anthony Hopkins, and Little Darlings (1980) with Kristy McNichol. She also appeared in the less-successful film Nickelodeon (1976) with her father Ryan, and in Circle of Two (1980) with Richard Burton. She appeared as the title character in the Faerie Tale Theatre episode Goldilocks and the Three Bears (1984).

Adult career

O'Neal's acting career took a backseat to her 1986 marriage to John McEnroe, a professional tennis player, for many years. Their relationship began in 1984 during which time she moved into his Central Park West condo in New York City.^[1] She would appear in only five films during the next 15 years. One notable role of hers was in Basquiat (1996).
In the early 2000s, O'Neal began acting again and made guest appearances on Sex and the City, 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, and Law and Order: Criminal Intent. In 2005, O'Neal began a recurring role as Maggie Gavin on the firehouse drama series Rescue Me, portraying the unbalanced and lively sister of Tommy Gavin, played by Denis Leary.
In January 2006, she participated in the second season of ABC's reality series Dancing with the Stars but was eliminated in the second round. She went on to do commentary for the series on Entertainment Tonight.
From 2006 to 2007, she portrayed the vindictive and psychotic Blythe Hunter in the My Network TV drama Wicked Wicked Games. She appears opposite Nashawn Kearse and Vanessa L. Williams in the film My Brother (2007).

Personal life

Family and relationships

Michael Jackson

John McEnroe

One of O'Neal's first public boyfriends was pop star Michael Jackson, whom she dated in the late 1970s to early '80s. In 1986, O'Neal married tennis player John McEnroe. She invited no one from her family to attended the ceremony. The couple have three children: Kevin (born 1986), Sean (born 1987) and Emily (born 1991). They separated in December 1992 and were divorced in 1994. Following the divorce, O'Neal's drug problems reemerged and she developed an addiction to heroin. As a result of her drug problems, McEnroe obtained custody of the children in 1998.^[2]
O'Neal was estranged from her father for 20 years^[3].

Arrest

On June 1, 2008, she was arrested for buying crack cocaine near her Manhattan apartment building.^[4] When police searched her, they found two bags of drugs — one of crack cocaine, one of regular cocaine — and an unused crack pipe.^[4] She was charged with a misdemeanor criminal possession of a controlled substance. Authorities released her without bail.^[4] On July 2, 2008, O'Neal pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in connection with the arrest and agreed to spend two half-day sessions in a drug treatment program.^[5]

Autobiography claims

In her autobiography, A Paper Life, O'Neal alleged that she had been molested by a male friend of her father. She also alleges physical and emotional abuse from her father, much of which she attributed to drug use. She also detailed her own heroin addiction and its effects on her relationship with her children. Her father, Ryan, denied these allegations.^[6] In a prepared statement, Ryan O'Neal said: "It is a sad day when malicious lies are told in order to become a 'best-seller'."^[6]
O'Neal writes in her autobiography that when she was 13, her father took her and her friend Melanie Griffith (18 at the time^[7]) on a trip to Europe, where she caught him having sex with Griffith in their hotel room.^[7]

In 2011. O'Neal wrote a new collections of memoirs entitled "Found": A Daughter's Journey Home" which dealt with her tempestuous relationship with her father, tempestuous marriage to John McEnroe, and her recent drug arrest.

Filmography

Film
Year	Film	Role	Notes
1973	Paper Moon	Addie Loggins	Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year – Actress
1976	The Bad News Bears	Amanda Whurlizer
	Nickelodeon	Alice Forsyte
1978	International Velvet	Sarah Brown
1980	Circle of Two	Sarah Norton
	Little Darlings	Ferris
1981	Prisoners	Christie	(never released)
1985	Certain Fury	Scarlet
1992	Little Noises	Stella
1996	Basquiat	Cynthia Kruger
2002	The Scoundrel's Wife	Camille Picou	US video title: The Home Front
2003	The Technical Writer	Slim
2006	My Brother	Erica
2008	Saving Grace	Grace
	Fab Five: The Texas Cheerleader Scandal	Lorene Tippit
2010	The Runaways	Marie Harmon
	Last Will	Hayden Emery
	Sweet Lorraine	Lorraine Bebee	completed
	Mr. Sophistication	Kim Waters	filming

Television
Year	Title	Role	Notes
1984	Faerie Tale Theatre	Goldilocks	"Goldilocks and the Three Bears"
1989	CBS Schoolbreak Special	Kim	"15 and Getting Straight"
1993	Woman on the Run: The Lawrencia Bembenek Story	Lawrencia Bembenek
2003	Sex and the City	Kyra	"A Woman's Right to Shoes"
2004	8 Simple Rules	Ms. McKenna	"Opposites Attract: Part 3: Night of the Locust"
	Law and Order: Criminal Intent	Kelly Garnett	"Semi-Detached"
2005	Ultimate Film Fanatic Featuring Silvia Lozano as Co-Star		judge
	Rescue Me	Maggie	cast member, 2005 to 2009
2006	Dancing with the Stars	Herself	5 episodes
	Wicked Wicked Games	Blythe Hunter	51 episodes

 

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Who is Rima Fakih?

Who is Rima Fakih? The entertainment and beauty pagent world knows Rima Fakih as an American beauty pageant contestant, and winner of the 2010 Miss USA title, and is also training to be a professional wrestler in WWE as a WWE Diva. She represented the state of Michigan in the Miss USA 2010 pageant, having previously won the 2010 Miss Michigan USA competition. She competed on the 5th season of WWE Tough Enough but was eliminated from the show on the 4th episode.

Personal life

Fakih was born September 22, 1985 in Srifa, a small city in the Jabal Amel region of Southern Lebanon, to a Shi'a Muslim family. As a young child, she lived in the village of Souk El Gharb in Mount Lebanon, and attended St. Rita's, a Catholic school near Beirut.^[2][3] In 1993, her parents, Hussein and Nadia Fakih,^[4] moved their family to New York in order to escape effects of the Lebanese Civil War.^[5] Fakih attended St. John's Preparatory School, a Catholic high school in Queens,^[6] and her father ran a restaurant in Manhattan.^[5] In New York, Fakih's family felt they were subjected to threats and vandalism based on events in the Middle East, and business at her father's restaurant declined following the September 11, 2001, attacks.^[5] In 2003, her family moved to the large Arab-American community in Dearborn, Michigan.^[2][5] Fakih and her family are Muslim, but they also celebrate elements of Christianity, such as Christmas.^[4][7][8] Fakih resides in Dearborn.^[9] She graduated from Henry Ford Community College, went on to earn degrees in economics and business management from the University of Michigan–Dearborn, and plans to attend law school after her year-long reign.^[8][10] She has a sister, who returned to live in Lebanon, and two brothers.^[2] Prior to winning the Miss USA title she worked as a sales associate at the Detroit Medical Center, developing and recruiting in the Arab American community.^[11] She is currently dating professional baseball player Ricky Romero.^[12]

Pageants

Fakih competed in her first pageant when she was nineteen, placing fourth runner-up at Miss Wayne County, a preliminary pageant for Miss Michigan in the Miss America system. She also competed in three smaller international pageants.^[13]

Miss Lebanon Emigrant

In 2008, Fakih was selected to represent Michigan in the Miss Lebanon Emigrant competition.^[5] The event is part of the Miss Lebanon pageant, and is open to young women who are Lebanese or of Lebanese origin, living in countries of the overseas Lebanese community.^[14] Fakih placed third in the contest, held August 13 in Batroun, Lebanon, finishing behind Carina El Kaddissi of Brazil and Jessica Kahawaty of Australia.^[15]

Miss USA

Fakih won the Miss Michigan USA pageant on September 19, 2009 at the McMorran Place Theater Port Huron. In May 2010 she represented Michigan at the Miss USA 2010 pageant held at the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. She won the Miss USA title on May 16, 2010, becoming the first Miss Michigan USA to win the national title since Kenya Moore in 1993.^[6]
Fakih is widely believed to be the first Lebanese American, the first Arab American and the first Muslim to win the Miss USA title; however, pageant officials stated their records are not detailed enough to confirm these claims.^[16] The first Michigan delegate to win the Miss USA title, Carole Gist, became the first African-American Miss USA in 1990.^[4]
Less than 24 hours after she was crowned, internet entertainment media directed attention to a website featuring a 2007 "Stripper 101" pole dancing contest sponsored by Detroit radio station WKQI and won by Fakih.^[17] WKQI said they had been contacted by representatives of the Miss Universe Organization, requesting additional photographs and information about the contest. The station expressed their support for Fakih, adding "the photos taken from our website are no more provocative than those on the Miss USA website."^[18] On May 18, Miss USA pageant representatives told ABC News they would proceed with their media tour starring Fakih.^[19] She was also an actress in an independent short film with sexual undertones titled Throbbing Justice.^[20]
During and after the Miss USA pageant, Fakih's religious and ethnic identity became the subject of widespread discussion. On the subject of identity, she was quoted as saying "I'd like to say I'm American first, and I am an Arab-American, I am Lebanese-American, and I am Muslim-American."^[21]
Many Arab Americans celebrated Fakih's victory,^[7] but some Muslims felt she did not properly represent their religion. Muslim scholar Ghazal Omid wrote "To say that she is a Muslim is inaccurate. No Muslim woman can call herself a ... Muslim and be on stage with her bikini".^[22] Responding to the issue in interviews, Fakih said she and her family are Muslims and respect the religion, but they may not be as strict as many people and do not define themselves by their religion; they view themselves as more "spiritual" than "religious" and appreciate all religions.^[23][24][25] On the subject of the planned Islamic cultural center and mosque in New York, Fakih stated, "I totally agree with President Obama with the statement on the constitutional rights of freedom of religion. [But] it shouldn't be so close to the World Trade Center. We should be more concerned with the tragedy than religion."^[26]

Miss Universe

As holder of the Miss USA title, Fakih represented the United States in the 2010 Miss Universe pageant, held at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas on August 23. Fakih did not place as a semi-finalist and was the first Miss USA since Shauntay Hinton, Miss USA 2002, to not place at the Miss Universe pageant.^[23][27]

Other media

Fakih appeared as a guest star on the November 29, 2010, edition of WWE Raw, where she crowned Sheamus, the winner of the King of the Ring tournament. She later competed on WWE Tough Enough on USA and was eliminated in week four.^[28]
She is listed number 86 on AskMen.com's top 99 women 2011 edition.^[29] On May 24, 2011, The Roots performed a freestyle song about her during her appearance on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. She also appears in the movie Real Steel, starring Hugh Jackman, scheduled to premiere on October 7, 2011.^[30]

 

 

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