O’Neal was the daughter of actors Ryan O’Neal and Joanna Moore. When she was eight years old, director Peter Bogdanovich approached her father and her with a proposal for them to costar in a movie based on the novel
Addie Pray (1971) by Joe David Brown, although Tatum had never before acted. Her grave performance as a shrewd cigarette-smoking nine-year-old who teams up with a bogus Bible salesman (who may be her father) to form an impressive con team in the Depression-set film won her critical praise and a Golden Globe Award for most promising new actress as well as the Oscar. In her next film, O’Neal played the pitching ace on a misfit youth baseball team in the popular comedy