Tatum O’Neal is reflecting on the role that could have been.
The iconic actress, who made history at age 10 by winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for 1974’s “Paper Moon,” told Variety that her father — fellow actor and “Paper Moon” co-star Ryan O’Neal — forbid her from auditioning for “Taxi Driver.” Tatum was asked to audition for the Martin Scorsese feature after her Academy Award win; the film was released in 1976 with a 13-year-old Jodie Foster instead in the Oscar-nominated role of a child prostitute.
“My father said, ‘No, you can’t,’” Tatum said of Ryan restricting her budding career as a child star. She added that Ryan thought the part was “a little too naked.” Tatum continued, “And I never really recovered from that.”
After Tatum became the youngest person to ever win an Academy Award (a record she still holds to this day), she explained that her father Ryan started to thwart her ambitions.
“He was controlling, and telling me, ‘No, you’re not good,’” Tatum said. “And so then I started to get not good, feeling scared all the time.”
While Ryan was the bigger star at the time in “Paper Moon,” Tatum’s performance is the one that became critically acclaimed and awarded. “Things got ugly quick,” she recalled of the rivalry with her father. Ryan refused to attend the Oscars with his daughter Tatum and instead opted to stay on location in Ireland to film Stanley Kubrick’s “Barry Lyndon” in lieu of traveling to Los Angeles for Tatum’s big night. Ryan had previously been nominated for “Love Story.” That Best Actor nod was his only Oscar recognition across his career. Ryan died in 2023.
After winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, Tatum went on to star in 1976 film “The Bad News Bears” (which was released the same year as her would-be turn in “Taxi Driver”) and 1980’s “Little Darlings.” She also reunited with her “Paper Moon” director Peter Bogdanovich for 1976 film “Nickelodeon” and 2013 feature “She’s Funny That Way,” later retitled “Squirrel to the Nuts” for its director’s cut. Bogdanovich died in 2022.
