Edward Leonard O'Neill (born April 12, 1946) is an American actor.
He is best known for playing Al Bundy on the Fox Network sitcom Married... with Children, for which he was nominated for two Golden Globes; and playing patriarch Jay Pritchett on the award-winning ABC sitcom Modern Family, a role for which he has been nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards and won four Screen Actors Guild Awards.
O'Neill was born into an Irish American Catholic family in Youngstown, Ohio. His mother, Ruth Ann (née Quinlan), was a homemaker and social worker, and his father, Edward Phillip O'Neill, was a steel mill worker and truck driver. O'Neill attended Ursuline High School before transferring to Worthington High School and winning a state championship, earning the name Ed O'Winner and winning a football scholarship to Ohio University, where he majored in history, also joining the Mu chapter of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity. O'Neill left Ohio after his sophomore year; he spent more time playing sports and partying than studying and also feuded with his coach.