Oscar Profile #292: Faye Dunaway

Born January 14, 1941 in Bascom, Florida to John Dunaway, a U.S. Army NCO and his wife Grace, a housewife, Faye Dunaway grew up in Florida, attending both Florida State University and the University of Florida before attending Boston University from which she graduated with a degree in theatre in 1962. Immediately after graduation she was hired as a replacement for the actress playing Paul Scofield’s daughter in the Broadway run of A Man for All Seasons. Two years later she had a supporting role in Arthur Miller’s After the Fall and a year later was starring in Off-Broadway’s Hogan’s Goat.

Dunaway made an impressive film debut in 1967’s Hurry Sundown with Jane Fonda and Michael Caine. Two films later she became a major star opposite Warren Beatty in the iconic Bonnie and Clyde, earning her first Oscar nomination. She was also nominated for two Golden Globes, one for Bonnie and Clyde as Best Actress and one for Hurry Sundown as Best Newcomer. The following year’s The Thomas Crown Affair opposite Steve McQueen was a major box office hit. 1970’s Puzzle of a Downfall Child earned her another Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress.

The mid-1970s proved to be the hallmark of Dunaway’s career. She earned three successive Golden Globe nominations for her performances in Chinatown, 3 Days of the Condor and Network and Oscar nominations for Chinatown and Network, winning both a Golden Globe and Oscar for the latter.

Controversy surrounded Dunaway’s 1981 portrayal of Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest. Although she placed second in the New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Actress, she also won a Razzie for Worst Actress. Her best reviewed performance since was as an alcoholic in 1987’s Barfly opposite Mickey Rourke for which she again earned a Golden Globe nomination, her last to date for a big screen performance. In addition to her Golden Globe win for Network, she also won Golden Globes for Best Supporting Actress in a Television Movie, Series or Miniseries for 1984’s Ellis Island and 1998’s Gia.

Dunaway made headlines in 1994 when she was hired to replace Glenn Close in the Los Angeles run of the musical Sunset Boulevard when Close took the show to Broadway, only to be fired by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and his fellow producers while still in rehearsals as her singing didn’t meet their standards. She sued for the damage done to her reputation. The case was settled out of court, but neither party has ever spoken about it.

The actress rebounded with her performances in 1994’s Don Juan DeMarco and the 1996 TV movie, Twilight of the Golds for which she received a Cable Ace nomination for her performance.

Dunaway continued to act on a regular basis through 2010, alternating guest starring roles on TV with minor roles on screen. Her 2013 role as Maria Callas in a film version of Master Class was not completed. She has a minor role in the forthcoming horror film, The Bye Bye Man at 75.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967), directed by Arthur Penn

This violent, stylized epic of the criminal lives of 1930s gangsters Bonnie and Clyde was the film that separated the “hip” from the “un-hip” critics. The N.Y. Times’ longtime critic, Bosley Crowther recanted his original dismissal of the film, but it was too little too late. By the end of the year, he was gone, forced to retire. Nominated for ten Oscars, it won two. Dunaway’s performance was considered one of two front-runners, along with Dame Edith Evans’ addled old lady in The Whisperers. They lost to Katharine Hepburn who won her second Oscar on her tenth nomination for Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.

CHINATOWN (1974), directed by Roman Polanski

Dunaway gave what was perhaps her best big screen performances as the tragic heroine of Polanski’s complex murder mystery, the first of the modern films noir. This is a film in which everything works, from first scene to last. Jack Nicholson is also at his career best as the private eye being played for a sap. Celebrated director John Huston as Dunaway’s evil father also provides an unforgettable performance. It was the height of screenwriter Robert Towne’s career and the highlight of Roman Polanski’s short-lived Hollywood career. Dunaway lost the Oscar to Ellen Burstyn in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.

3 DAYS OF THE CONDOR (1975), directed by Sydney Pollack

James Grady’s best-selling novel was called Six Days of the Condor, but Pollack’s film cuts the timing in half. It doesn’t, however, cut the tension in this still fascinating Hitchcock style crime thriller in which Robert Redford plays a CIA researcher who returns from a lunch run to find all his co-workers dead, murdered by a possible government assassin. Dunaway plays a woman Redford kidnaps on the lam and convinces to help him. Cliff Robertson and Max von Sydow have major supporting roles, but this is a good old-fashioned star vehicle in which the chemistry between Redford and Dunaway matters as much as the story line.

NETWORK (1976), directed by Sidney Lumet

A cultural phenomenon in 1976 and a cult favorite ever since, this prescient satire written by Paddy Chayefsky artfully predicts a world in which realty TV runs amok. Oscars went to Chayefsky and three of the film’s stars – Dunaway, Peter Finch and Beatrice Straight, with William Holden, Ned Beatty, director Lumet and the film itself having to settle for nominations. Finch is the mentally disturbed news anchor given his own show and then further exploited by network executive Dunaway over the objections of her lover, veteran producer Holden’s objections. Straight is the wife Holden foolishly leaves for Dunaway.

MOMMIE DEAREST (1981), directed by Frank Perry

Anne Bancroft was the original choice to play Joan Crawford in the film version of adopted daughter Christina Crawford’s frantic memoir, but she caved into pressure and turned it down. Dunaway then took the role and sank her teeth into it, some say too much. Whether you find the film true-to-life or over-the-top, you can’t help but be fascinated by Dunaway’s portrayal of the legendary star of an earlier era. First runner-up to Glenda Jackson in Stevie for the N.Y. film Critics award, she conversely also won a Razzie for her performance which so unnerved her that she still refuses to talk about the film to this day.