Tatum O'Neal Drug Bust

Tatum O'Neal, the Oscar-winning child actress and daughter of Ryan O'Neal, was arrested on charges of criminal possession of a controlled substance.

The 44-year-old actress, who has long battled addiction, and went to rehab in 1996, but her career has not been in recovery until recently, was arrested at 7:30 pm Sunday night just blocks form her Lower East Side luxury apartment and charged with buying cocaine and crack.

She reportedly asked the detectives when they approached her, "You know who I am, right?"

Then she told the detectives that she was just researching a part. "I'm doing this for a part as a junkie," she insisted, later begging the police, "Can't we just forget this?"

"Then she said she'd been clean for two years, and that she'd just came out today," the source said.

A clean pipe and screen were found on her person. Both O'Neal and her alleged source were arrested and taken to the NYPD's 7th Precinct.

O'Neal has three grown children with tennis star John McEnroe. Her most acclaimed recent role is that of the alcoholic sister of Denis Leary's firefighter, Tommy Gavin, in "Rescue Me."

She still holds the record for being the youngest actor to win an Academy Award, for starring with her father in "Paper Moon." She was 10.

In her autobiography, "A Paper Life," Tatum O'Neal alleged that she was molested by a male friend of her father. She also discusses her heroin addiction and its effects on her relationship with her kids as well as the effect of her mother Joanna Moore's addictions to speed and alcohol, on her.

"She's cool - it's the last thing I thought would happen," said a security official at her apartment building. "I'm shocked."

O'Neal, who has three grown kids with tennis bad-boy John McEnroe, wrote in her 2004 memoir "A Paper Life" that boozing and drug-taking was in her DNA.

Her mom, the late actress Joanna Moore, was an alcoholic and hooked on amphetamines even as she was riaising Tatum and her younger brother Griffin in Los Angeles.

"My own young life had eerily echoed Addie's [her character in 'Paper Moon'] even though my mother was still alive," she wrote.

"In the grip of addiction, she had virtually abandoned me and Griffin, leaving us in squalor - as well as beaten and abused by the men in her life."

Tatum took to the wild life early and hard, though she completed addiction rehab in 1996 and claimed to be clean.

But her acting career was in tatters. Last year, she began a comeback, however, landing film and TV roles, including the alcoholic shrew Maggie, sister of Denis Leary's firefighter Tommy Gavin, in "Rescue Me."

In an interview last year, she said she felt sorry for celeb-wreck Britney Spears, saying things started getting better for her when she left LA.

"I was thrust out there as a little kid. It was hard to cope," she told Post columnist Liz Smith... "I used to walk with my head down. I was involved with drugs and alcohol. I had a lot of shame and self-hatred."

She was charged early today with criminal possession of a controlled substance.