Early life

O'Neill was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, but O'Neill and her older brother Michael were raised in New Rochelle, New York, and Wilton, Connecticut. When she was 14, the family moved to New York City. On Easter Sunday, 1962, O'Neill attempted suicide because the move would separate her from her dog Mandy and horse Monty — "her whole world". That same year, she was discovered by the Ford modeling agency. By age 15, while attending the prestigious Dalton School in Manhattan, she was appearing on the covers of Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and Seventeen, earning $80,000 a year in 1962.

An accomplished equestrian, O'Neill won upwards of 200 ribbons at horse show competitions in her teens. With her modelling fees, she had purchased a horse, named Alezon. However, it once balked before a wall at a horse show, throwing her, breaking O'Neill's neck and back in three places. She attended New York City's Professional Children's School and the Dalton School in Manhattan, but dropped out to wed her first husband, IBM executive Dean Rossiter, at age 17.

Career

In 1968 O'Neill landed a small role in For Love of Ivy. In 1970 she played one of the lead female roles in Rio Lobo starring opposite John Wayne.

She is most remembered for her role in the 1971 film Summer of '42, where she played Dorothy Walker, the young wife of an airman who has gone off to fight in World War II. She stated in a published 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 thirty, Barbra Streisand being at the top of the list.

O'Neill continued acting for the next two decades. She appeared in The Carey Treatment (1972), Lady Ice (1973), The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975), Sette note in nero (1977), Caravans (1978), A Force of One (1979), Scanners (1981), and The Cover Girl Murders (1993 made-for-television film). She went to Europe in 1976 and worked with Italian director Luchino Visconti, appearing in his last film The Innocent (1976), where she played the part of the mistress, Teresa Raffo.

In 1982, O'Neill starred in the short-lived NBC prime time soap opera Bare Essence. She portrayed a role previously envisioned by actress Linda Evans in the miniseries on which the soap was based. She was initially reluctant to star in a television series, because in those days actors usually only starred in either movies or on television. Her attitude changed when TV miniseries such as Rich Man, Poor Man and Roots started featuring film stars. When the movie business went into a doldrum, she agreed to star in two television movies, which she enjoyed, and then took on the starring role in Bare Essence. In 1984, she played the lead female role on the CBS television series Cover Up.

O'Neill is also 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.

Personal life

O'Neill has been married nine times to eight husbands (she married, divorced, and remarried her sixth husband). O'Neill has three children from as many fathers.

On October 23, 1982, O'Neill suffered a gunshot wound in her home on McClain Street in Bedford, New York. Police officers who interviewed O'Neill determined that she accidentally shot herself in the abdomen with a .38 caliber revolver at her 30-acre, 25-room French-style estate while trying to determine if the weapon was loaded. Her fourth husband at the time, John Lederer, was not in the house when the handgun was discharged, but two other people were in the house. Detective Sgt. Thomas Rothwell was quoted as having said that O'Neill "didn't know much about guns."

In her 1999 autobiography Surviving Myself, O'Neill describes many of her life experiences, including her marriages, career, and her move to her Tennessee farm in the late 1990s. O'Neill says that she wrote the autobiography (her first book) "... at the prompting of her children."

In 2004, O'Neill wrote and published From Fallen To Forgiven, a book of biographical notes and thoughts about life and existence. The actress, who underwent an abortion after the divorce from her first husband while dating a Wall Street socialite, became a pro-life activist and a born-again Christian in 1986 at age 38, counseling abstinence to teens. Concerning her abortion, she writes:

I was told a lie from the pit of hell: that my baby was just a blob of tissue. The aftermath of abortion can be equally deadly for both mother and unborn child. A woman who has an abortion is sentenced to bear that for the rest of her life.

O'Neill continues to be active as a writer working on her second autobiography, CoverStory, an inspirational speaker, and fundraiser for the benefit of crisis pregnancy centers across the United States. She has also served as the spokesperson for the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, an organization for people who regret that they or their partners had abortions.

O'Neill works for other charitable causes, such as Retinitis Pigmentosa International and the Arthritis Foundation. As a breast cancer survivor she was once a spokesperson for the American Cancer Society. She has hosted a one-hour television special for World Vision International shot in Africa concerning the HIV epidemic. O'Neill sponsors the Jennifer O'Neill Tennis Tournament to benefit the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), and fund-raiser for Guiding Eyes for the blind.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1968	For Love of Ivy	Sandy
1969	Some Kind of a Nut	The Beauty
1970	Rio Lobo	Shasta Delaney
1971	Summer of '42	Dorothy
1971	Such Good Friends	Miranda
1972	Carey Treatment, TheThe Carey Treatment	Georgia Hightower
1973	Lady Ice	Paula Booth
1975	Reincarnation of Peter Proud, TheThe Reincarnation of Peter Proud	Ann Curtis
1975	Whiffs	Lt. Scottie Hallam
1975	Flower in His Mouth, TheThe Flower in His Mouth	Elena Bardi
1976	Innocent, TheThe Innocent	Teresa Raffo
1977	Psychic, TheThe Psychic	Virginia Ducci
1978	Caravans	Ellen Jasper
1979	Force of One, AA Force of One	Mandy Rust
1979	Steel	Cass Cassidy
1980	Cloud Dancer	Helen St. Clair
1981	Scanners	Kim Obrist
1987	I Love N.Y.	Irene
1991	Committed	Susan Manning
1992	Invasion of Privacy	Hillary Wayne	Video
1994	Discretion Assured	Paige
1994	Visual Bible: Acts, TheThe Visual Bible: Acts	Lydia of Thyatira	Video
1997	Corporate Ladder, TheThe Corporate Ladder	Irene Grace
1997	Ride, TheThe Ride	Ellen Stillwell
1999	Prince and the Surfer, TheThe Prince and the Surfer	Queen Albertina
2002	Time Changer	Michelle Bain
2012	Last Ounce of Courage	Dottie Revere
2013	Doonby	Barbara Ann

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1979	Love's Savage Fury	Laurel Taggart	TV film
1981	Other Victim, TheThe Other Victim	Nancy Langford	TV film
1983	Bare Essence	Lady Bobbi Rowan	Main role (11 episodes)
1984-1985	Cover Up	Danielle Reynolds	Main role (14 episodes)
1985	A.D.	Messalina	TV miniseries
1985	Chase	Sandy Albright	TV film
1986	Perry Mason: The Case of the Shooting Star	Alison Carr	TV film
1988	Red Spider, TheThe Red Spider	Stephanie Hartford	TV film
1988	Glory Days	Scotty Moran	TV film
1989	Full Exposure: The Sex Tapes Scandal	Debralee Taft	TV film
1990	Personals	Heather Moore	TV film
1992	Perfect Family	Maggie	TV film
1993	Cover Girl Murders, TheThe Cover Girl Murders	Kate	TV film
1994	Jonathan Stone: Threat of Innocence	Nan Stone	TV film
1995	Silver Strand	Louellen Peterson	TV film
1996	Voyeur II	Elizabeth (voice)	Video game
1996	Poltergeist: The Legacy	Lorraine Compton	Episode: "Revelations"
1997	Nash Bridges	Jenny	Episode: "Shake, Rattle & Roll"
2000	On Music Row	Linda Rodgers	TV film

Books written

• Surviving Myself, New York: William Morrow and Company, 1999.
• From Fallen to Forgiven, Thomas Nelson, 2002.
• You're Not Alone: Healing Through God's Grace After Abortion. Faith Communications, 2005.
• Remarkable Women, Insight Publishing Group, 2005.
• A Fall Together, B&H Publishing Group, 2006.
• A Winter of Wonders, B&H Publishing Group, 2007.
• A Late Spring Frost, B&H Publishing Group, 2007
• Faith Lessons, Insight Publishing Group, 2008.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]