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I pulled up to the valet, gave my car to the attendant, took a deep breath, and walked into the restaurant with my head down. Tony, the owner of the restaurant, led me toward a back table, and there he was. Him. Ryan. Dad. He gave me a huge beautiful smile and opened his big arms. It was just amazing to see him. He looked so handsome and seemed so well. I ran over, wrapped my arms around him and hugged him for a long time. I smelled the cologne he's worn since I was a little girl, and my heart just felt like it took a different type of beat—one it hadn't taken in some twenty-five years. I felt like I was home. I was whole. It was a dream come true.

Sean was there, sitting next to my father. He rose to greet me, and I gave him a big hug. Sean is six foot three, with unruly brown hair, freckles, white skin, and blue, blue, blue eyes. He has his father's physique, but he looks a lot like my father. Sean—my brave boy, the conduit who facilitated this scary reunion. I was so grateful to him for this moment. Three generations of O'Neals. And nobody was getting arrested. That alone was cause for celebration. Cake, please!

Eating lunch with my father and son was surreal. We didn't address the years of absence head-on, and I never expected to. That definitely wasn't my dad's style. He doesn't like to get to the heart of matters unless it's on his terms. He talked about Farrah mostly. The loss was still fresh—she'd died just a month earlier—and her memory was comfortable ground for him. She had loved him unconditionally for years and years.

Later, we said good-bye outside. He gave me a kiss. We promised each other we'd get together again soon.

On the way home, I had butterflies in my stomach. What was I getting myself into? Was it the right decision? Would it pan out, or would I end up wondering why I ever went down this road?

Back in my apartment, I lay down and wondered what the future would hold. Reconnecting with my dad felt incredible. By now the butterflies were mostly gone, and there was a comfort in my chest, like a warm blanket settling over me that said I was home. I had my daddy back.

Or did I?

Chapter Six
The New O'Neals

SOON AFTER THAT
first reunion lunch at Tony Trattoria, I had my third neck surgery in July 2009, and I went to stay at Ryan's beach house to recuperate. The house is huge and impeccably clean. The bedroom I was given was cushy, with a comfortable bed, lots of space, and its own bathroom. The sea air made me feel like I was recovering faster. It appeared to be a perfect environment for healing.

Everything went swimmingly until my housekeeper, who was helping out, tried to defrost the freezer of the refrigerator in Ryan's bedroom. When my father walked into his room, he found water streaming across the floor. Ryan called for me, and when I came to his doorway, I saw him standing in a puddle. Ryan was mad. He said, “That's my freezer, my private place, my area. Why don't you have her clean your freezer? Keep her at your house. This is my place, where I live, Tatum.” I kind of yelled back. I said, “Come on, Dad. It's just a freezer.”

I'd just had neurosurgery. I was wearing a neck brace. If ever there was an appropriate time to be mad at me, especially for my housekeeper's defrosting skills (or lack thereof), this was not it. As he vented, I felt a painful tingling up and down my torso, which I would later find out was shingles, activated by stress.

I'd been feeling strong and independent, and already he was getting to me. I realized I had to protect myself, take care of
me
. I packed up my stuff, wrote a note saying, “Bye, Dad. I love you,” and left.

Ryan apologized and sent flowers. I called him. We were both still committed to preserving the ground we'd gained, so we swept the incident under the rug. But I finished my recuperation at my own home, in my own space.

WHEN SEAN GRADUATED
from Occidental in the spring of 2010, he moved in with my father. At first, I was a little apprehensive. However, I hoped and trusted that Ryan would rise to the occasion. Sean's lease was up, and he loved the beach, the sound of the ocean, the sunsets. He is my most poetic child. That year after you graduate college is always tricky (not that I would know). Even more so if you want to be an actor. What better place for Sean to live while he figured out his next move? After all, my dad was an established actor, which was what Sean aspired to. Ryan was happiest when he was working, and he was busy shooting episodes of the TV dramas
Bones
and
90210
. I hoped this might inspire Sean in his career. And, by all accounts, Sean and Ryan were having fun, going to dinners and beach parties, getting along well.

As spring turned into summer, I traveled back and forth to New York to shoot the finale of
Rescue Me
. In L.A., I was practicing my lines for an independent movie—another indie (I had five in the can, waiting for release). A movie I'd shot the previous year,
The Runaways,
starring Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning, and Michael Shannon, was opening at the ArcLight in Hollywood, and we all went to that together: me, Sean, and Ryan.

I went out to the beach house on weekends to visit Ryan and Sean. The Malibu beach house, where I'd spent much of my childhood, had gone through major changes over the years. There had been a great pool table. And, of course, this was where I learned to pitch for
Bad News Bears
and to ride horses for
International Velvet.
Factor in the Frisbee games with Ryan and I was a little like those girls in the olden days who could play the spinet, stitch samplers, and not much else. In that house, I excelled at recreation.

At some point, my dad and Farrah had renovated the whole house, and it was transformed into a very special place, with simple, clean furniture, orchids in bloom, and big picture windows looking out at the sea. That summer, it was a wonderful, calm setting, and I spent lots of my free time there.

Ryan and I read lines together, and he helped me a lot. We read my part over and over. He said he wasn't hearing something, though he didn't know exactly what he was looking for. He said, “Deepen your voice. Speak with authority, Tatum.” Finally, I lowered my voice and found a certain toughness for the character. He said, “That's it. You found it. Now I can let you go,” and released me to go work on the lines by myself.

We weren't all work and no play. Sean and my father played Frisbee and paddleball every day. Ryan and I took walks on the beach and let my dog, Pickle, run up and down the shoreline. It was nice. I was reminded of the funny, familiar, everyday details of my father's life. He exercised every day, then took a sauna. He is the neatest person in the world and super well-groomed. He always smells great, and his hair is always perfect. Whenever he passed a mirror, he'd stop, fix his hair, and shadowbox at his image. So handsome! It cracked me up.

We went to Nobu for sushi, Tony Trattoria, or had mellow cookouts at home. Sometimes I'd cook . . . badly. I am capable of cooking well but, weirdly, not for Ryan. Maybe it's because my dad's house is a freaking bachelor pad. There are no ingredients to speak of. So I made the most of spaghetti and marinara. In the evenings I'd ride his stationary bike while we watched movies and sports together. For some reason I find documentaries about murder, death, and serial killers to be perversely relaxing, so I'd hop on the bike and my father would turn on the Investigation Discovery channel to find
Dr. G: Medical Examiner
. Then my dad would massage my shoulders and tell me funny stories about him and Farrah, like the time they were on the beach and thought a bunch of paparazzi were coming straight for them. They were kind of excited at the attention, he said, embellishing how they preened for their big-picture moment, but at the last second, the herd of paparazzi swerved and passed by, revealing their true target farther down the beach: Paris Hilton. As Ryan told it, he and Farrah both sat there in stunned disbelief, saying, “Who's she? What does she have on us? We're Ryan and Farrah!”

Days and weeks went by, and there was no further sign of the man who had lashed out at me when the housekeeper defrosted the freezer. When I visited, we laughed often, about everything. I loved the way, whenever he greeted anyone, even an old friend, he'd shake their hands and say, “How do you do? Ryan O'Neal:
Love Story
” or “Ryan O'Neal:
Peyton Place
” or “Ryan O'Neal: Tatum's father.”

When my dad came over to my house, he teased me about how hard it was to park in my neighborhood—West Hollywood. “It's okay, Tatum, I parked in Palm Springs.” It always made me laugh. He had pretty much adopted my cat, Wallis, and they had a speaking relationship. He liked to joke about how the cat was more respectful about getting on his bed. Little, silly things. He was so funny. I loved being around him. It wasn't the stereotypical “perfect family” of a sitcom, but it was, finally, perfect for me.

A CLOSE, STABLE
family was something I wanted for as far back as I could remember. When my ex-husband and I were together, we built our unique version of a close family. We always brought all the kids with us when we traveled. Christmases we spent home in New York with a big tree, lots of presents, and a feast with ham, turkey, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, string beans, and stuffing—all recipes I'd learned from my mother and John's mother. Those holidays were a new experience for me. I had a window into what having a big, happy family might be like. It was the first time I'd felt any real sense of family . . . and still I couldn't stay.

John and I were so young when we married—I was just twenty-two and he twenty-seven. There were ups and downs. We both brought our own issues to the marriage, and mine were more obvious, but what brought them all to the surface was the fading of his career. After having an amazing year in 1984, John lost his number-one ranking. Around the time Kevin was born in 1986, John took a six-month sabbatical. When he rejoined the tour, he had a hard time facing the young power hitters Ivan Lendl, Boris Becker, and the up-and-comers who had adopted their new style of playing. John's ranking started to slip. He was in his late twenties, which for tennis was a reasonable age to begin declining, but what professional athlete who has been at the top his entire life is prepared to start losing? I felt that he was blaming me for the end of his streak. I understand it better now—that kind of adjustment has to be horrendous for a world champion.

From what I see and hear of him now, my ex-husband is a different person from the one I knew. He's nice, gentle, caring. But at the time there was so much tension between us. Perhaps it wasn't fair to John that I'd gone through so much before our marriage. We were young; we had little kids; we traveled constantly. It was a lot of pressure and I just couldn't hack it.

When I left John, I knew I was dissolving the family dynamic that had meant so much to me, but I had no idea how hard it would be to live alone and to raise kids by myself. The years that followed were the hardest, and the only ways I found to face my own darkness were illegal and destructive.

By 2010, in my forties, clean and sober, I noticed for the first time that I still longed for that big, happy family. I even questioned my decision to leave, especially after watching John get married again and reinvent the family life we might have had together. Had I made a mistake in sacrificing that? I myself was hesitant to remarry, partly because I wasn't sure I wanted to go that route again, and partly because I didn't want my kids to have to get to know someone else. I had always felt displaced by my parents' companions. And hadn't I put my children through enough already?

My children were out of the nest, and for now, at least, I was not trying to replicate that traditional family structure. But the moments Sean and I spent with Ryan, in the place that had once been my home, were happier than I had imagined possible. Life could not have been better. A brief golden age with the perpetual golden boy.

THEN, ONE NIGHT
in July, Ryan and I went to dinner with my then-agent, at an Italian restaurant. While we were chatting, my father abruptly turned to my agent and said, “You want to represent me?”

My agent said, “Sure.” Suddenly, he was representing my father, too. Didn't that muddy the waters a bit? I sat there, thinking,
What about good old Tatum? Sitting right here at the table. Anybody want to run this by me?
Boundaries, anyone?

As we ate, my—our—agent said, “You guys have a good rapport.” He started asking if we'd want to work together, and if so, on what? In the past, I had had the idea of doing a reality show by myself, but by the time we were done with our entrées, we were all caught up in the notion of Ryan and I doing a reality show in tandem.

I wanted to be in front of a camera again. Just before my marriage, I'd begun taking acting classes, wanting to reinvent my image and to be taken seriously. But then John came along. During the years of my marriage, the only role I played was that of a supportive wife and mother. Then there was the divorce, and the tough years that followed. With the exception of some indie movies, there had been a twenty-year gap in my career. I was particularly proud of the work I'd done in recent years. I had stayed with
Rescue Me
for six years. But I never stopped feeling like I had to prove myself extra-hard.
Paper Moon
had been a free ticket for me, an entrée into a career I was too young to know I wanted. Winning an Academy Award at nine years old had put me in an odd position—and I'd spent a lifetime living up to it. I was totally proud of the Oscar—but it was a little challenging to have begun my career at the pinnacle of success and then to realize that I would have to work my way up the ladder again. But I was willing to pay my dues.

My arrest gave me the opposite sort of notoriety. It was a badge of dishonor that I wanted to overcome. I did the court-ordered rehab—two eight-hour class sessions about drugs and alcohol—which cleared the charges from my record. But as far as the press was concerned, I had been convicted.

The notion of a reality show promised not only work but a chance to show who I really was—not the precocious child star, not the out-of-control tabloid headline, but a real, strong, independent woman.

In the next few days, I talked to my kids about the possibility of doing a TV show—a documentary series that followed my life. I'd been offered a few such shows in the past, and they weren't opposed to the genre. But when they heard my dad was involved, they didn't know exactly how to respond. This was a gray area—it was unclear to all of us if it would be good or bad for me. So while they were generally apprehensive, they trusted me and believed in me. They knew I'd make the right choices along the way. They just wanted me to keep them informed. They wanted updates and downloads.

It was talking to my friend Kyle that got me most excited about the prospect of doing a show with my father. He said, “Yay, Tatey! This will be good for you. It's brave to take on something so personal and heart-driven as this.” Kyle's enthusiasm was contagious. But as a die-hard fan of
Dancing with the Stars
and
The
Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,
Kyle cautioned me, too. He said, “Be careful. I know how sensitive you are. I want you to have a good outcome with your dad, but don't do anything that might be damaging to your sobriety or yourself.” For the most part, Kyle was just plain enthusiastic, except that it broke his heart that if the show did go forward, it would take place in L.A. We wouldn't be in the same city, and he wouldn't be able to color my hair for it!

Now that my father and I were a family again, would we really have a chance to work together again, too? I didn't have to wait long to find out. Within days of that dinner with my agent, Ryan and I had meetings with several different production companies. It was on. It happened so fast I couldn't help wondering if my agent had planned it all in advance and maneuvered things so we would believe it was merely a spontaneous inspiration. No matter. The Hollywood train had left the station and we were on board.