Jennifer O'Neill was born in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, on February 20, 1948. Her father Oscar (deceased 2009 at age 91) was of Irish-Spanish descent, and her mother Irene ("Rene") was English. Whereas Elvis was riding high on the fame of his hit record "Blue Suede Shoes" in 1956, when she was nine years old in 1957, schoolmates humiliated her over a pair of pink suede shoes. Things got worse when her parents refused to buy her a horse (she has always loved horses), and got her a cat instead. At age fourteen, she attempted suicide with her mother's sleeping pills; her parents only saw this as an attempt for attention. She woke up from a two week coma to find that the incident had shocked her body into getting her period. O'Neill continued to ride horses every chance she could. However, at age fifteen she broke her back and neck in three places when a horse she was riding fell on her. There would be no more horseback riding when her family moved from Connecticut to New York City soon after. O'Neill started her highly-successful modeling career in New York City and later in Paris also when she was only fifteen as a means to make money to buy her own horse. By age fifteen she had also surrendered her virginity to a twenty year old boyfriend in college "...so he would love me" and who had given her his fraternity pin. She was a student at Dalton School in Manhattan, and she got into New York's Neighborhood Playhouse for aspiring actors, but dropped out to get married at age seventeen. Her first film was 'For Love of Ivy (1968)'. Although it was a small start, she did attract the interest of director 'Howard Hawks', who cast her to star opposite John Wayne in 'Rio Lobo (1970)'. Her agent fought hard to get her an audition for the main role in the surprise sleeper 'Summer of '42 (1971)'.
