Ryan O’Neal wins legal battle for Andy Warhol portrait of actress Farrah Fawcett

Actor Ryan O’Neal has won his court battle to keep an £8 million Andy Warhol portrait of the late Charlie’s Angels star Farrah Fawcett.

A jury in Los Angeles sided with the 72-year-old Love Story actor after a three-week trial that scrutinised his 30-year relationship with the actress.

Fawcett died from cancer in June 2009 at the age of 62 and bequeathed all her artwork to Texas University, where she had studied.

Within days of the death, O’Neal took one of two portraits of the actress that Warhol created in 1980 from her flat.

The verdict means he will be able to keep the painting at his beachside home in Malibu, California.

He told jurors the painting was one of the strongest reminders of Fawcett for him. “I talk to it,” he said. “I talk to her. It’s her presence. Her presence in my life. In her son’s life.” Before learning of the jury’s decision, O’Neal told reporters: “I’ve got to win or I’ll die.”

Several of Fawcett’s close friends testified that she told them that one of the portraits belonged to O'Neal. Another ex-Charlie’s Angel Jaclyn Smith told the jury: “I really feel Farrah would want that portrait with Ryan.”

The couple split after Fawcett caught O’Neal in bed with a much younger woman in 1997, but he said she forgave him and they reconciled in 2001 after he was diagnosed with leukaemia.

David Beck, a lawyer for the university, asked jurors to honour Fawcett’s wishes in a will.

He alleged that O’Neal took the Warhol after learning she had left him nothing.

“Please, please speak for Farrah because she can’t speak for herself,” he said. O’Neal’s lawyer, Marty Singer, said the university was being greedy.