The ‘Peyton Place’ and ‘Barry Lyndon’ actor and father of Tatum O’Neal had a decades-long relationship with Farrah Fawcett.

Ryan O’Neal, the boyish leading man who kicked off an extraordinary 1970s run in Hollywood with his Oscar-nominated turn as the Harvard preppie Oliver in the legendary romantic tearjerker Love Story, has died. He was 82.

“As a human being, my father was as generous as they come,” Patrick wrote. “And the funniest person in any room. And the most handsome clearly, but also the most charming. Lethal combo. He loved to make people laugh. It’s pretty much his goal. Didn’t matter the situation, if there was a joke to be found, he nailed it. He really wanted us laughing. And we did all laugh. Every time. We had fun. Fun in the sun.”

O’Neal also played the title character, an Irish rogue in 18th century England, in Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon (1975), the director’s highly anticipated follow-up to A Clockwork Orange, and starred in Nickelodeon (1976), his third collaboration with Bogdanovich in the decade.

Earlier, the sandy-haired O’Neal made the ladies swoon for five seasons when he starred as Rodney Harrington on more than 500 episodes on the hit Peyton Place, the 1964-69 serialized ABC melodrama spawned by the Lana Turner movie.

O’Neal was married to and divorced from actresses Joanna Moore and Peyton Place co-star Leigh Taylor-Young before beginning an on-and-off 30-year relationship with actress and Charlie’s Angels icon Farrah Fawcett that ended with her death at age 62 on June 25, 2009.

In the ensuing years, watching Love Story “upsets me, actually,” he told Piers Morgan in 2011. “I lost Farrah to cancer, and I just wonder [why] that played out that way for me. One was just a big deal and so successful, and then in real life it was just the opposite, a tragedy.”

Adapted from the sensational-selling novel by Yale professor Erich Segal (who also wrote the screenplay) and released in theaters mere months after the book entered stores, Love Story — made for less than $2 million — grossed $106.4 million at the box office.

The drama also received seven Oscar nominations, including one for best picture, and won for best score. (O’Neal lost out to George C. Scott of Patton in the best actor race.)