Jennifer O'Neill

Biography

Jennifer O'Neill (born February 20, 1948) is a Brazilian-born American author, model, and former actress. After moving to the United States as an infant, she first came to prominence as a teenaged model, and for her spokesperson work for CoverGirl cosmetics, which began in 1963 and spanned three decades. She made her feature-film debut in the comedy film For Love of Ivy (1968), followed by a lead role in Howard Hawks's Western film Rio Lobo (1970). O'Neill's breakthrough role came in Robert Mulligan's period drama Summer of '42 (1971), in which she portrayed the wife of an army serviceman during World War II who becomes the subject of a teenaged boy's romantic attraction. The same year, she starred in Otto Preminger's Such Good Friends. In the mid-1970s, she appeared in several Italian films, including Luchino Visconti's final feature, The Innocent (1976), and Lucio Fulci's giallo horror film The Psychic (1977). She later starred in David Cronenberg's cult horror film Scanners (1981), and in the short-lived television series Cover Up (1984–1985). In 1988, O'Neill became a born-again Christian, and inspired by her feelings of regret over having an abortion at age 22, became active in the anti-abortion movement. She is the spokesperson for the Silent No More Awareness Campaign. She has since authored several books, including a memoir, Surviving Myself (1999), in which she detailed her career, marriages, experiences with anxiety and postpartum depression, and her religious faith. O'Neill founded the Hope and Healing at Hillenglade Foundation in Nashville, Tennessee, an equine-assisted therapy foundation that specializes in treating war veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Since the 1990s, O'Neill has occasionally appeared in film and television, including roles in the independent film Doonby (2013) and the Rachel Scott biopic I'm Not Ashamed (2016).

== Early life == O'Neill was born on February 20, 1948, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Irene Freda (née Pope), a native of London, and Oscar Delgado O'Neill, a Brazilian of Portuguese, and Irish ancestry. O'Neill's father, born in Puerto Rico, was a bomber pilot in World War II, and later owned a medical supply company. Her paternal great-grandfather, Oscar O'Neill Sr., was the president of the Bank of Rio de Janeiro. O'Neill's mother, one of seven children, was raised in a "poor but close-knit family." When she was an infant, she relocated with her family to the United States, where she and her older brother Michael were raised in New Rochelle, New York, and Wilton, Connecticut. O'Neill began riding horses at age 9, and became an accomplished equestrienne, winning upwards of 200 ribbons at horse show competitions in her teens. At age 14, after her parents informed her the family was relocating to New York City, O'Neill attempted suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills, and fell into a coma for about two weeks. Reflecting on this, she said: "I didn’t want to die, I just wanted to be heard. It was just a rebellion against my parents’ decisions. What seems like a bump in the road as we get older, to a teenager can seem catastrophic... [our moving meant] losing my ability to take care of a horse that I was able to ride. They wouldn't let me take our dog and took her to the pound." In a later interview, O'Neill said she lacked adequate role models as a child, and described her parents as "completely involved with themselves."

== Career ==

=== 1963–1971: Modeling and breakthrough === After her family's relocation to New York City, two of O'Neill's neighbors suggested that she model: "That appealed to me, because then I could buy my own horse and no one could take anything away from me again. So I strolled into Eileen Ford’s agency, and she signed me on the spot." By age 15, while attending the prestigious Dalton School in Manhattan, she began appearing on the covers of Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and Seventeen, earning $80,000 ($851,000 today) in 1962. Commenting on O'Neill in 1965, Diana Vreeland said: "O'Neill is a dream. She has great distinction." O'Neill largely used her modeling income to fund her equestrian endeavors, which afforded her to purchase her own horse, named Alezon. When O'Neill was 15 years old, though, the horse balked before a wall at a horse show, throwing her, causing her to fracture her neck and lower spine in three places. The injury resulted in her suffering lifelong back pain. O'Neill eventually dropped out of the Dalton School at age 17 to wed her first husband, IBM executive Deed Rossiter. In 1963, O'Neill signed a contract with CoverGirl cosmetics, marking the beginning of a 30-year career as a spokesperson for the company. O'Neill is listed in the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History's Center for Advertising History for her long-standing contract with CoverGirl cosmetics as its model and spokesperson in ads and television commercials. In 1968, O'Neill landed a small role in the comedy film For Love of Ivy. In 1970, she played her first lead role in the Howard Hawks film Rio Lobo co-starring John Wayne. She had a supporting role in Otto Preminger's Such Good Friends (1971) starring Dyan Cannon and Ken Howard. In the 1971 film Summer of '42, O'Neill played Dorothy Walker, the early-20s wife of an airman who has gone off to fight in World War II. She stated in a 2002 interview that her agent had to fight to even get a reading for the part, since the role had been cast for an "older woman" to a "coming of age" 15-year-old boy, and the director was only considering actresses over the age of 30. The film was a box-office success and went on to attract a cult following.

=== 1972–1979: Italian films ===

In 1972, she co-starred with Tom Jones in David Winters's television special The Special London Bridge Special. The same year, she starred in the crime thriller The Carey Treatment (1972), and the drama Glass Houses, the latter of which was filmed in 1970. This was followed by a lead role in Lady Ice (1973) opposite Donald Sutherland and Robert Duvall. O'Neill next had a leading role in the psychological horror film The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975), co-starring with Michael Sarrazin and Margot Kidder, and directed by J. Lee Thompson. The same year, she appeared opposite Elliott Gould in the Ted Post-directed comedy Whiffs.

By the mid-1970s, O'Neill had forged a career in Italy, first starring in Luigi Zampa's drama The Flower in His Mouth (1975) opposite James Mason, which was shot on location in Sicily. The following year, she starred in Luchino Visconti's final directorial feature, The Innocent, and subsequently starred in Lucio Fulci's The Psychic (1977), portraying a clairvoyant whose visions lead to the discovery of a murder. She was in the movie Caravans (1978) with Anthony Quinn, Christopher Lee and Michael Sarrazin. She was originally cast in the Disney film The Black Hole (1979), but was told she needed to cut her hair because it would be easier to film the zero-G scenes. She gave in, drinking wine during the haircut and leaving noticeably impaired. She lost the part after a serious car crash on the way home. O'Neill was instead cast in the action martial arts film A Force of One (1979), co-starring with Chuck Norris.

=== 1980–1990: Subsequent film and television === O'Neill starred opposite David Carradine in the aviation-themed drama Cloud Dancer (1980), followed by a lead role in David Cronenberg's science-fiction horror film Scanners (1981), portraying a woman who leads an oppositional group against a malevolent private military company creating biokinetic and psychokinetic humans. When her movie career slowed, O'Neill took roles in series television. She starred in NBC's short-lived 1982 primetime soap opera Bare Essence and played the lead female role on the 1984 television series Cover Up. On October 12, 1984, Jon-Erik Hexum, O'Neill's co-star in the Cover Up television series, mortally wounded himself on the show's set, unaware that a gun loaded with a blank cartridge could still cause extreme damage from the effect of expanding powder gases. He died six days later. O'Neill continued to appear in film and television throughout the late 1980s, including in the drama film I Love N.Y. (1987) and in the Perry Mason television film Perry Mason: The Case of the Shooting Star (1986).