Ryan O’Neal’s Seersucker Suit in What’s Up, Doc?

Ryan O’Neal in What’s Up, Doc? (1972) Vitals Ryan O’Neal as Dr. Howard Bannister, awkward musicologist San Francisco, Summer 1972 Film: What’s Up, Doc? Release Date: March 9, 1972 Director: Peter Bogdanovich Costume Designer: Polly Platt (uncredited) WARNING! Spoilers ahead! Background The late Ryan O’Neal was born 85 years ago today on April 20, 1941. Though perhaps best known for his roles in Love Story (1970), Paper Moon (1973), Barry Lyndon (1975), or The Driver (1978), the first O’Neal performance that I ever watched was Peter Bogdanovich’s 1972 comedy What’s Up, Doc?, which Maureen Lee Lenker posited for Entertainment Weekly after his death as the actor’s strongest performance. Bogdanovich conceptualized the film as an homage to classic screwball comedies of the 1930s and ’40s like Bringing Up Baby (1938), from which Cary Grant’s beleaguered and bespectacled hero clearly lent cinematic DNA to O’Neal’s characterization of Dr. Howard Bannister. Howard and his domineering fiancée…