Oscars flashback: Tatum O’Neal (‘Paper Moon’) becomes youngest competitive winner in history

I recently wrote about the surprise Best Supporting Actress Oscar win by Anna Paquin for 1993’s “The Piano.” At 11 years of age, she became the second youngest competitive Academy Award recipient in history. She remains the last child Oscar champ, though several have since been nominated.

The record for the youngest competitive Oscar victory by a child (someone age 17 or younger) was actually set two decades before the practically hyperventilating Paquin accepted her statuette. And it was in the same category — Best Supporting Actress. Ten-year-old Tatum O’Neal, daughter of the late Ryan O’Neal (a Best Actor nominee for 1970’s “Love Story”), delivered a performance in “Paper Moon” that was loved enough by the academy to bring her the coveted award. The younger O’Neal played Addie Loggins, a child turned con artist who teams up with a man posing as her father (played by her actual father, the elder O’Neal) during The Great Depression. She was nominated alongside Linda Blair as a demonically possessed schoolgirl in “The Exorcist,” Candy Clark as a ditzy teen in “American Graffiti,” Madeline Kahn as a scheming exotic dancer – also in “Paper Moon,” and Sylvia Sidney as the aging mother of an unhappy New York City housewife in “Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams.”

All five surely dreamed of winning the Oscar, but it was O’Neal whose wish came true.

So how did she do it? Here are five reasons why.

1. Her performance was met with critical acclaim.
“Outstanding,” “finely tuned” and “just plain marvelous” were some of the words used to describe O’Neal’s work. While she initially appears scared and vulnerable, we quickly see that Addie is extremely intelligent, confident and highly pragmatic. She more than holds her own with her onscreen father. In fact, she quickly becomes the person whom the audience is most vested in. The casting of the young daughter of a major Hollywood star might have proven disastrous. But thanks to Tatum’s professional and skillful dramatic abilities, it turned out to be destiny.

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2. She had a co-leading role.
Category placement aside, Addie appears on-screen for most of “Paper Moon” and is key to driving its plot. That gave O’Neal a significant advantage over her rivals, particularly her co-star Kahn as well as Sidney, whose roles might be better described as “featured.” We can’t really fault the young O’Neal for being placed in the supporting race, even though the Golden Globes understandably classified her as lead. Category fraud continues to the be prevalent to this day, and is often successful. (Alicia Vikander as Best Supporting Actress in 2015’s “The Danish Girl” and Mahershala Ali as Best Supporting Actor in 2018’s Best Picture “Green Book” are some recent examples that immediately come to mind.) The teensy Tatum had by far the largest role of the five, and that made a big difference in the outcome.

3. “Paper Moon” was a popular film.
The charming tale missed the Best Picture lineup, but did earn a total of four nominations. Those included O’Neal and Kahn for Best Supporting Actress, as well as Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Sound. It did even better at the Golden Globes, where it competed for Best Film Musical or Comedy, Best Director for Peter Bogdanovich, Best Actor and Best Actress (for the older and younger O’Neal, respectively) and Best Supporting Actress for Kahn. Tatum was also presented with the now-defunct Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year — Actress. “Paper Moon” still holds an impressive 90% “Certified Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. On paper, it’s clear that the largely positive reception for “Paper Moon” helped push Tatum over the top — or in this case, over the “Moon.”

SEE Oscar Best Picture gallery: History of every Academy Award-winning movie

4. She was Hollywood royalty.
While Ryan O’Neal didn’t earn a “Paper Moon” Oscar nod himself, he was one of the entertainment industry’s biggest stars at the time. That made his daughter Tatum a genuine Tinseltown princess. And famous Hollywood daughters were seemingly on a hot streak at the Oscars at the time. Jane Fonda had won Best Actress of 1971 for “Klute.” (Her famous father Henry Fonda had competed for Best Actor for 1940’s “The Grapes of Wrath.” He would have to wait more than four decades to finally get the gold for 1981’s “On Golden Pond.”) Liza Minnelli danced off with the Best Actress Oscar for 1972’s “Cabaret.” (Her legendary mother Judy Garland had contended for Best Actress for 1954’s “A Star Is Born” and for Best Supporting Actress for 1961’s “Judgment at Nuremberg.” While she lost both times, she was previously judged worthy of a special miniature Oscar for her portrayal of Dorothy in the 1939 classic “The Wizard of Oz.”) So the trend continued when Tatum became the third Hollywood daughter in a row to experience the wizard of Oscar.

5. There was no one who was able to beat her.
Her “Paper Moon” cast mate Kahn was delightful as Trixie Delight, but her tricks were never going to bring her the trophy over Tatum. Sidney appeared only briefly in “Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams.” It would have taken more than just wishing to make her dream come true. Clark probably got in due to solid support for the Best Picture entry “American Graffiti.” The writing on the wall was surely that she would lose. And then there’s Blair in “The Exorcist,” who was likely O’Neal’s biggest threat. She delivered what must have been the most talked about performance of the year and also grabbed the Golden Globe. Unfortunately, controversy over her “possessed voice” having been done by Mercedes McCambridge (1949’s Best Supporting Actress for “All the King’s Men”) bedeviled her chances for the already-controversial “The Exorcist.” That left Blair’s head spinning once again as little Tatum O’Neal walked off with the prize for “Paper Moon.” Many moons and a half century later, still the youngest competitive winner in Oscar history.

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