Actor Ryan O’Neal dies: What was the cause of death?

Actor Ryan O’Neal passed away earlier this month. According to his death certificate, he died from congestive heart failure, as ‘Page Six’ reported.

Danny Moloshok

Adrián Córdoba Gidget Alikpala

Update: Dec 23rd, 2023 05:48 EST

Actor Ryan O’Neal, who was nominated for an Academy Award for ‘Love Story’, died on December 8 at the age of 82. A death that saddened the world of acting, and that his son Patrick reported on his Instagram profile: “My dad passed away peacefully today, with his loving team by his side, supporting and loving him as he would do with us.”

At the time, the cause of death was not known, although different media pointed to various health problems he had suffered in recent years. He was diagnosed with chronic leukemia in 2001 and prostate cancer in 2012.

What's Up, Doc? is one of the best comedies ever thanks to Ryan O'Neal. pic.twitter.com/r84pEW8IS1
— Laurie Crosswell (@lauriecrosswell) December 10, 2023

Actor Ryan O’Neal dies: What was the cause of death?

Now, two weeks later, celebrity and entertainment news website Page Six reports that the actor’s death certificate indicates that he died from congestive heart failure. This comes after he suffered from cardiomyopathy for years.

This illness had led him to be admitted to the Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California, which is where he passed away. The charismatic actor was later buried at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park & Mortuary.

‘Love Story’ actor Ryan O’Neal’s cause of death revealed https://t.co/FCSoMIBd1p pic.twitter.com/LSaC4mdBji
— New York Post (@nypost) December 23, 2023

What is congestive heart failure?

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Congestive heart failure is the inability of the heart to satisfy the body’s needs for blood. When the heart weakens, the blood begins to retreat and expel fluid through the capillary walls, which causes an accumulation of fluid in different organs.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cardiomyopathy represents a group of various heart conditions of the heart muscle. When cardiomyopathy takes place, “the normal muscle in the heart can thicken, stiffen, thin out, or fill with substances the body produces that do not belong in the heart muscle.” This situation can lead to irregular heartbeats, the backup of blood into the lungs or other parts of the body, and heart failure.

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Who is Jon Hamm married to? What to know about actress wife Anna Osceola - AS USA

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Who is Jon Hamm married to? What to know about actress wife Anna Osceola

The Mad Men actpr met co-star and bride-to-be in 2015 and began dating during the pandemic. They tied the knot in Anderson Canyon, Big Sur in June 2023.

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Update: Apr 12th, 2025 14:06 EDT

One of Hollywood’s most eligible bachelors Jon Hamm married Mad Men co-star Anna Osceola in Anderson Canyon, Big Sur back in June 2023. They walked up the aisle to Nancy Sinatra’s 1967 James Bond theme song, You Only Live Twice.

Jon Hamm marries fiancée Anna Osceola where they filmed ‘Mad Men’ finale https://t.co/nbcbDE81Ub pic.twitter.com/AZ4wgLX04m
— Page Six (@PageSix) June 25, 2023

The couple got engaged in 2021 and had been dating since 2020. Hamm had previously been in a long-term relationship with Jennifer Westfeldt - their 18-year liaison was one of the longest and steadiest among Hollywood’s glitterati before it came full circle in 2015. “With great sadness, we have decided to separate, after 18 years of love and shared history,” they explained in a joint statement to People magazine in September 2015. “We will continue to be supportive of each other in every way possible moving forward.”

Hamm and Westfeldt were more or less the same age, and according to several sources, she was almost like a mother figure to him, so it came as a surprise to some observers when he was rumoured to have started dating a woman 17 years his junior. The actor is believed to have first met Anna Osceola while they were both filming Person to Person in Season 7 of Mad Men. Anna had a cameo role as a receptionist, Clementine, in the final episode.

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Whirlwind romance

Romance blossomed during the Coronavirus pandemic when they began dating. They were photographed walking Hamm’s dog Splash in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles in late 2020. The couple were engaged in February 2023 and appeared together on the red carpet the following month at the 2023 Vanity Fair Oscar Party.

For the first couple of years, Jon and Anna tried to keep their relationship private and away from the limelight so what do we know about the new bride? Anna was born on April 8, 1988 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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Anna Osceola, from a large family

Her father, Fuad Phillip Alan Osceola, is fully qualified massage therapist with over 30 years of experience in his field while little is known about her mother Lisa. Curiously, the surname Osceola is of native American origin and relates to the Seminole Tribe of Florida. Anna has two elder sisters - Ariel and Alexandra and a brother Sam - who are now Jon’s new in-laws.

Like all of her siblings, Anna went into higher education after high school, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Drama from NYU Tisch School of the Arts on Broadway, New York City.

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Early career and acting roles

She made her screen debut playing Charlie in spoof Not Another High School Show in 2007 although the pilot never aired and the follow-up series was subsequently scrapped. Minor walk-on parts followed in a number of films, series and TV movies and gradually some recurring roles. She played US soldier Abby Sherman in Rizzoli and Isles, Robin Wylie in the ABC family series Greek and Casey Logan, a fashion model who witnesses a member of the Russian mafia kill someone in USA Network drama, In Plain Sight.

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She made separate appearances in Law & Order, first as Jamie Spears in the season 18 episode Rape Interrupted, then was brought back in 2017, cast as Noelle Terlesky, who listens to Erik Menendez’s grim confession that he and his brother had murdered their parents.

Anna starred as Larry alongside her new husband in the 2022 Miramax production, Confess, Fletch. It was reported that Hamm donated two thirds of his fee to help the producers stay within their budget.