Background
O'Neal was born in Ocala, Florida, to Martha and Coke Wisdom O'Neal.
O'Neal was born in Ocala, Florida, to Martha and Coke Wisdom O'Neal.
He attended the Riverside Military Academy in Gainesville, Georgia, and Ocala High School. After his military stint, he moved to New York and studied at the Actors Studio and Neighborhood Playhouse.
Upon graduation, he enrolled at the University of Florida in Gainesville where he majored in drama. During college, O'Neal joined the Florida Players, a theatre troupe. After earning a bachelor's degree, O'Neal enlisted in the US Army Air Corps and served during World War II. During the war, he directed short training films.
O'Neal was seen mostly as a guest star on US television throughout four decades, beginning in the 1950s. In the early 1960s he received critical praise for his leading role on Broadway in Tennessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana but lost the starring role for the 1964 film version to Richard Burton. O'Neal appeared in several films of the mid-1960s.
In 1969 he had a leading role in John Huston's The Kremlin Letter, and was featured in the 1973 hit The Way We Were. O'Neal died on September 9, 1994, of respiratory failure at Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical Center in Manhattan, seventeen days short of his 67th birthday. At the time of his death, O'Neal was also suffering from cancer and tuberculosis.
The Secret Life of an American Wife Assignment to Kill Matchless.
He was also a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity and was the editor of the University yearbook.