# Ron O'Neal
**Ron O'Neal** (September 1, 1937 – January 14, 2004) was an American actor, director, and screenwriter who became an overnight star as the cocaine dealer Youngblood Priest in the 1972 blaxploitation film *Super Fly*, a role that subsequently typecast him for the rest of his career.[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0641938/bio/) • [2](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/feb/18/guardianobituaries.film)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Born / died | September 1, 1937, Utica, New York; January 14, 2004, Los Angeles, pancreatic cancer, age 66[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0641938/bio/) |
| Stage training | Karamu House, Cleveland's interracial theater troupe, 1957–1966, in productions including *Kiss Me, Kate* and *A Streetcar Named Desire*[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0641938/bio/) |
| Breakthrough role | Gabe in Charles Gordone's Pulitzer Prize-winning *No Place to Be Somebody* (1970), winning the Obie, Drama Desk, and Clarence Derwent awards[3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/oneal-ron-1937-2004) |
| Signature film | *Super Fly* (1972), directed by Gordon Parks Jr.; released August 4, 1972[4](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/shaft-super-fly-and-the-birth-of-blaxploitation-180978812/) |
| Box office | More than $30 million earned on a budget of less than $500,000, by one scholarly account; Encyclopedia.com reports a $5 million gross on a $500,000 budget[5](https://www.calstatela.edu/sites/default/files/the_blackness_of_blaxploitation_-_race_respectability_and_african_american_popular_culture_in_the_1970s_-_chiqutara_kendall.pdf) • [3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/oneal-ron-1937-2004) |
| Directing | *Super Fly T.N.T.* (1973), his directorial debut and a box-office failure; *Up Against the Wall* (1991)[6](https://www.tvinsider.com/people/ron-oneal/) • [3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/oneal-ron-1937-2004) |
| Spouse | Audrey Pool, married 1993 until his death[7](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0641938/) |
## Early life and stage career
O'Neal was born in [Utica, New York](https://www.edgepedia.org/utica-new-york), and grew up in a working-class Black neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio. His father had been a jazz musician in the 1920s, playing in the pit orchestra for the revue *Blackbirds of 1929*, but worked in a factory to support the family and kept his clarinet and saxophone in the attic; O'Neal said he did not know his father had been a musician until after the man's death, which occurred when O'Neal was 16.[3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/oneal-ron-1937-2004) After graduating Glenville High School he spent one disastrous semester at [Ohio State University](https://www.edgepedia.org/ohio-state-university), where he said he "just played bridge," before a friend took him to see *[Finian's Rainbow](https://www.edgepedia.org/finians-rainbow)* at the Karamu House. "I had never seen a play before," he recalled.[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0641938/bio/) • [3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/oneal-ron-1937-2004)
He joined the Karamu House ensemble and performed there from 1957 to 1966, in roles ranging from Walter Lee in *A Raisin in the Sun* to [Stanley Kowalski](https://www.edgepedia.org/stanley-kowalski) in *A Streetcar Named Desire*, supporting himself as a house painter.[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0641938/bio/) • [3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/oneal-ron-1937-2004) He moved to New York in the mid-1960s, taught acting in Harlem, and worked in [Off-Broadway](https://www.edgepedia.org/off-broadway) and summer stock productions.[2](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/feb/18/guardianobituaries.film)
**Recognition on stage.** In 1970 he starred in the Joseph Papp Public Theatre production of Charles Gordone's *No Place to Be Somebody*, playing a bar owner and part-time pimp trying to take over local rackets. Gordone became the first African American to win the [Pulitzer Prize](https://www.edgepedia.org/pulitzer-prize) for drama for the play, and O'Neal collected the Obie, Drama Desk, and Clarence Derwent awards for his performance.[3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/oneal-ron-1937-2004) The role caught the attention of the producers of *Super Fly*.[2](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/feb/18/guardianobituaries.film)
## Super Fly
The project came to producer Sig Shore from first-time screenwriter Phillip Fenty, a longtime friend of O'Neal's from [Cleveland](https://www.edgepedia.org/cleveland) who had developed the story with the actor.[8](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/54432-SUPER-FLY) Fenty told O'Neal he would write the main character with him in mind.[3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/oneal-ron-1937-2004) Gordon Parks Jr. signed on to direct, and the film was financed by a consortium of Harlem businessmen; according to the [American Film Institute](https://www.edgepedia.org/american-film-institute) catalog, it was reported as the first Black-oriented film financed entirely by Black investors as well as the first to use an all-Black or Puerto Rican technical crew.[8](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/54432-SUPER-FLY)
*Super Fly* opened in theaters on August 4, 1972.[4](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/shaft-super-fly-and-the-birth-of-blaxploitation-180978812/) O'Neal played Youngblood Priest, a Harlem cocaine dealer who engineers one final lucrative deal so he can leave the business forever, walking away unscathed with his retirement money.[3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/oneal-ron-1937-2004) His interpretation of the long-haired dealer in tight white suits driving a customized Cadillac made him an instant star, mainly among the vast urban Black movie-going public.[2](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/feb/18/guardianobituaries.film) The Curtis Mayfield soundtrack, with songs including "Pusher Man" and "Freddie's Dead," became one of the most successful movie themes of the blaxploitation era.[9](https://www.gpb.org/news/2022/08/04/super-fly-at-50-blaxploitation-classic-remains-powerful-pop-culture-force)
**Controversy.** The film drew organized criticism. Junius Griffin, head of the Hollywood branch of the NAACP, warned against "a steady diet of so-called black movies that glorify black males as pimps, dope pushers, gangsters, and super males," and the NAACP, along with the [Congress of Racial Equality](https://www.edgepedia.org/congress-of-racial-equality), tried to keep the film out of theaters or pull it from those it had reached.[4](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/shaft-super-fly-and-the-birth-of-blaxploitation-180978812/) O'Neal argued that the film's point was the pusher trying to escape his circumstances and that the Mayfield soundtrack carried an anti-drug message; "'Fly' means hip, glamorous, together, and we show that that life is just the opposite," he told the *New York Times* in 1972.[3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/oneal-ron-1937-2004) He later said the negative press soured his career: "Outside New York, people assumed I really was a hustler."[7](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0641938/)
## Later career
O'Neal directed and starred in the sequel *Super Fly T.N.T.* (1973), which found Priest living in Europe and drawn into the illegal arms trade; the film failed at the box office and was generally deemed a disaster.[3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/oneal-ron-1937-2004) • [6](https://www.tvinsider.com/people/ron-oneal/) Afterward, the only film roles offered to him were pimps and drug dealers, and he spent much of the rest of his career in low-budget crime and action films, including *The Master Gunfighter* (1975), *A Force of One* (1979), *The Final Countdown* (1980), and *Red Dawn* (1984).[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0641938/bio/) • [3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/oneal-ron-1937-2004)
On television his first role came opposite [Muhammad Ali](https://www.edgepedia.org/muhammad-ali) in the 1979 miniseries *Freedom Road*, and he later held recurring parts in *Bring 'Em Back Alive* and *The Equalizer*, with guest appearances on shows such as *Hill Street Blues*, *A Different World*, and *Living Single*.[3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/oneal-ron-1937-2004) He returned to directing with *Up Against the Wall* (1991), a drama set in a Chicago housing project, and to the stage in a 1994 [Stratford Festival](https://www.edgepedia.org/stratford-festival) production of *Othello*.[3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/oneal-ron-1937-2004) In 1996 he joined [Richard Roundtree](https://www.edgepedia.org/richard-roundtree), Pam Grier, Jim Brown, and Fred Williamson in *Original Gangstas*, a reunion of blaxploitation stars set in Gary, Indiana; he noted it was the first time all the era's names had appeared together in one movie.[3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/oneal-ron-1937-2004) He also appeared in Snoop Dogg's 1994 music video "Doggy Dogg World."[7](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0641938/) His last film was *On the Edge* (2002), with Ice-T.[3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/oneal-ron-1937-2004)
## Legacy
O'Neal spent roughly three decades trying to distance himself from Youngblood Priest, and he said the typecasting kept him from roles of merit after the 1970s.[3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/oneal-ron-1937-2004) Yet the film's standing grew: it is now counted among the key blaxploitation movies of its decade, and its story of a dealer trying to hustle his way out of the life has resonated with four decades of hip-hop artists.[2](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/feb/18/guardianobituaries.film) • [10](https://www.fastcompany.com/40585222/super-fly-influenced-hip-hop-and-hip-hop-influenced-the-remake) O'Neal was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2000 and died on January 14, 2004, in Los Angeles, survived by his wife, Audrey Pool.[3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/oneal-ron-1937-2004) • [7](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0641938/)
## References
1. [Ron O'Neal – Biography, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0641938/bio/)
2. [Ron O'Neal, obituary by Ronald Bergan, The Guardian, February 18, 2004](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/feb/18/guardianobituaries.film)
3. [O'Neal, Ron 1937–2004, Contemporary Black Biography via Encyclopedia.com](https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/oneal-ron-1937-2004)
4. ['Shaft,' 'Super Fly' and the Birth of Blaxploitation, Smithsonian Magazine (Questlove excerpt), October 19, 2021](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/shaft-super-fly-and-the-birth-of-blaxploitation-180978812/)
5. [Chiquitara Kendall, The Blackness of Blaxploitation: Race, Respectability, and African American Popular Culture in the 1970s, Cal State LA](https://www.calstatela.edu/sites/default/files/the_blackness_of_blaxploitation_-_race_respectability_and_african_american_popular_culture_in_the_1970s_-_chiqutara_kendall.pdf)
6. [Ron O'Neal – Actor, Director, Writer, TV Insider](https://www.tvinsider.com/people/ron-oneal/)
7. [Ron O'Neal, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0641938/)
8. [Super Fly (1972), AFI Catalog](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/54432-SUPER-FLY)
9. [Super Fly at 50, Georgia Public Broadcasting, August 4, 2022](https://www.gpb.org/news/2022/08/04/super-fly-at-50-blaxploitation-classic-remains-powerful-pop-culture-force)
10. ["Super Fly" influenced hip-hop. And hip-hop influenced the remake, Fast Company, 2018](https://www.fastcompany.com/40585222/super-fly-influenced-hip-hop-and-hip-hop-influenced-the-remake)
---
*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Screen people and creators › Screen actors of the Anglosphere and Europe › American actors: 1970s to 1990s › Surnames O to Pa*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license