Jennifer O'Neill  Jennifer O'Neill (born February 20, 1948) is a Brazilian-American actress, model, author and speaker, known for her role in the 1971 film "Summer of '42" and modelling for CoverGirl cosmetics starting in 1963. O'Neill was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Her mother was English and her father was a Brazilian of Portuguese, Spanish and Irish ancestry. She and her older brother Michael were raised in New Rochelle, New York, and Wilton, Connecticut. When she was 14, the family moved to New York City. On Easter Sunday, 1962, O'Neill attempted suicide because the move would separate her from her dog Mandy and horse Monty — "her whole world". That same year, she was discovered by the Ford modeling agency. By age 15, while attending the prestigious Dalton School in Manhattan, she was appearing on the covers of "Vogue", "Cosmopolitan", and "Seventeen", earning $80,000 ($ today) in 1962. An accomplished equestrienne, O'Neill won upwards of 200 ribbons at horse show competitions in her teens. With her modelling fees, she had purchased a horse, named Alezon. However, it once balked before a wall at a horse show, throwing her, and breaking her neck and back in three places. She attended New York City's Professional Children's School and the Dalton School in Manhattan, but dropped out to wed her first husband, IBM executive Dean Rossiter, at age 17. O'Neill has dual citizenship, as she maintained her Brazilian citizenship, being then a Brazilian and American citizen. In 1968 O'Neill landed a small role in "For Love of Ivy". In 1970 she played her first lead role in "Rio Lobo". O'Neill may be best remembered for her role in the 1971 film "Summer of '42", where she played Dorothy Walker, the early-20s wife of an airman who has gone off to fight in World War II. She stated in a 2002 interview that her agent had to fight to even get a reading for the part, since the role had been cast for an "older woman" to a "coming of age" 15-year-old boy, and the director was only considering actresses over the age of thirty, Barbra Streisand being at the top of the list. O'Neill continued acting for the next two decades. She appeared in Hollywood feature films, made-for-television films, and European films, such as Italian director Luchino Visconti's last film, "The Innocent" (1976).