With iconic roles including Paper Moon and Love Story, Ryan O’Neal has been a beloved actor for the past 50 years. News of the actor’s death at age 82 inspired family members and costars alike to take to social media and celebrate O’Neal’s contribution to the entertainment industry.
No stranger to television, he got his start in the soap opera Peyton Place, where he starred in over 500 episodes. His role as lovelorn Oliver in the 1970 film Love Story rocketed him to stardom and made him a household name. But as impressive as his accolades are, he never took television for granted. His last television credit before his death was wrapping up a 24-episode run on Fox’s police procedural, Bones.
Starring Emily Deschanel as the titular crime solver, the series was based on a series of books written by Kathy Reichs, who herself was a forensic anthropologist. Bones successfully implements the will-they-won’t-they dynamic between Temperance Brennan (Deschanel) and FBI Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanez), following them into marriage and parenthood. Though O’Neal only cropped up a few times a season, he was instrumental to Brennan’s backstory and progression as a character.
Who did Ryan O’Neal play in Bones?
When casting O’Neal in a crime procedural, the role would have to be meaty. And the part of Brennan’s father, Max, perfectly fit the bill. After abandoning Brennan and her brother when they were teenagers, Max appears in season 2 as a career criminal on the run. Concerned that his children are in danger from criminals from his past, Max does everything in his power to protect them. This includes killing and setting the corpse of the FBI Deputy Director on fire. Booth shrewdly points out that Max’s moral code dictates that committing the crime falls in line with any means necessary.
Though murder is a crime — and one of many that Max has committed — the ends justify the means because he is doing it for his family. He loves his children implicitly, and though he differs from his daughter in this matter, they still have affection for each other. Brennan disapproves of his criminal lifestyle, but can’t deny that she loves her father. And though he is more than capable of murder, he is still an amiable father figure. He holds no ill will against Brennan for her role in law enforcement and even supports her partner, Booth, who has put him in prison. He is an advocate of their romantic union, which results in his grandchild, Christine.
Max crops up throughout the series until his heroic end in season 12. After a Serbian war criminal comes after Booth to seek revenge, Max stands his ground to protect his family. He gets shot and though he is taken to the hospital, he doesn’t make it. While Bones didn’t star the late actor as a regular cast member, the role was undoubtedly a solid last entry in O’Neal’s career.