American performer Amy O’Neill was born in Pacific Palisades on July 8, 1971. The daughter of an art school director and a construction company owner, O’Neill is the third of five children. Accompanied by her older siblings, she began auditioning for roles at the age of ten, first appearing at the age of 13 in an episode of Mama’s Family (1983) in which she played the younger version of Betty White’s character.
As a young teenager, O’Neill continued to land guest spots on television shows such as Matt Houston (1982), Night Court (1984), Highway to Heaven (1984), The Twilight Zone (1985), and Family Ties (1982), before winning a regular role on the 1986 season of the long-running soap opera The Young and the Restless (1973). She made her feature film debut three years later in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989). In the movie, O’Neill’s character Amy is shrunk by her scientist father (Rick Moranis). She was nominated for a Young Artist Award for her performance, but lost to Gaby Hoffmann for Field of Dreams (1989). O’Neill reprised her role in the sequel, Honey, I Blew Up the Kid (1992).
Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, O’Neill mainly continued to guest-star on popular television series such as Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), The Young Riders (1989), and Murder, She Wrote (1984), also appearing in the biographical miniseries I Know My First Name Is Steven (1989). She had roles in the made-for-TV flicks White Wolves: A Cry in the Wild II (1993) and Attack of the 5 Ft. 2 Women (1994), as well as the rejected comedy pilot …Where’s Rodney? (1990), but by the mid-1990s, her interest in acting had waned.
Retired from acting since 1994, O’Neill is now part of the Los Angeles performance art community; her work in circus acts has taken her all over the world. She has never married and has no children.
