weathered a coronary episode, and a boating acci-
dent has made life seem dearer. Nevertheless, to the
film’s supporters in the 1980’s,On Golden Pondsug-
gested that the decade’s complicated social and fa-
milial problems might find positive resolutions.
Impact As depicted inOn Golden Pond, the 1980’s
family—for all its friction and strain—remained a vi-
able structure for growth and emotional sustenance.
The film is also notable as the last to feature legend-
ary actor Henry Fonda, whose death a year later
helped mark the passing of Hollywood’s golden age.
Further Reading
Constantakis, Sarah, ed.Drama for Students: Pre-
senting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly
Studied Dramas. Vol. 23. Detroit: Thomson Gale,
2006.
Shale, Richard.The Academy Awards Index: The Com-
plete Categorical and Chronological Record. Westport,
Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993.
Wendy Alison Lamb
See also Academy Awards; Age discrimination;
Feminism; Film in the United States; Marriage and
divorce;Ordinar y People;Terms of Endearment; The-
ater.
O’Neill, Tip
Identification Speaker of the U.S. House of
Representatives, 1977-1987
Born December 9, 1912; Cambridge,
Massachusetts
Died January 5, 1994; Boston, Massachusetts
O’Neill was the second-longest-serving Speaker of the House
of Representatives, working under Presidents Jimmy Carter
and Ronald Reagan.
Thomas Philip “Tip” O’Neill, Jr., was a tough, out-
spoken politician from a bygone era. A die-hard lib-
eral who led the Democratic Party into the Ronald
Reagan era, O’Neill served as Speaker of the House
from 1977 until 1987. While O’Neill had worked for
the Jimmy Carter administration, the party failed in
a time of economic, international, and political cri-
ses, and much of O’Neill’s efforts during the Reagan
era centered on strengthening his party. The politi-
cal relationship between O’Neill and Reagan was a
rocky one. O’Neill disagreed with Reagan’s domes-
tic and defense policies and believed that Reagan
was ignorant of the intricacies of government.
Reagan’s first act as president was to issue substan-
tial tax cuts. O’Neill believed that this move was a
mistake, but he also believed that the American peo-
ple would not turn their backs on the president’s
program until they had seen it fail. He felt that, given
time, the plan would create larger budget deficits. In
a few months, it became apparent that O’Neill had
been right. The tax cuts had not worked, and a seri-
ous recession developed in 1982. Reagan made an-
other error when he tried to reduce Social Security
benefits for people who had chosen to leave the
workforce. The public loudly voiced their opinion
against this plan, and O’Neill’s popularity and that
of the Democratic Party rose.
In 1984, O’Neill was elected to serve a fifth term
as Speaker. During his last two years in office, he ex-
perienced success in foreign policy. He led a U.S. bi-
partisan delegation to Russia to meet with President
Mikhail Gorbachev regarding arms control. He also
played an important role in the passage of the Immi-
gration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which cre-
ated sanctions against employers who knowingly
hired illegal immigrants and granted amnesty to
millions of undocumented workers who had estab-
lished roots in the United States before 1982. One of
O’Neill’s greatest accomplishments was his partici-
pation in the Anglo-Irish Agreement between the736 O’Neill, Tip The Eighties in America
Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill accuses President Ronald Rea-
gan of ignoring the plight of starving people in Africa during a
1984 press conference.(AP/Wide World Photos)