I would rather have gotten married than have a Hollywood contract.

O'Neill and her older brother Michael were reared in New Rochelle New York and Wilton Connecticut. She attended New York City's Professional Children's School and the prestigious Dalton School in Manhattan. By age fifteen Jennifer O'Neill was gracing the cover of Vogue Cosmopolitan Seventeen and other magazines earning $80000 a year in 1962 working as a fashion model in New York City and also working in Paris France and dating older men.

Jennifer O'Neill (born February 20 1948) is an American actress model author and speaker known for her role in the 1971 film Summer of '42 and as a face of CoverGirl cosmetics starting in the 1970s.