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From her English Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faye_Dunaway
Dorothy Faye Dunaway (born January 14, 1941) is an Academy Award-winning American actress who rose to prominence in the late 1960s with the films Bonnie and Clyde and The Thomas Crown Affair.
She began her acting career in the early 1960s on Broadway. Her star status was enhanced in the 1970s by critically praised performances in Chinatown (1974) and Network (1976), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Dunaway's career evolved to more mature and character roles in subsequent years, often in independent films, beginning with her controversial portrayal of Joan Crawford in the 1981 film Mommie Dearest.
Early life
Dunaway was born in Bascom, Florida, the daughter of Grace April (née Smith) (1922-1958), a housewife, and John MacDowell Dunaway, Jr. (1920-1984), a career non-commissioned officer in the United States Army.[1][2] She is of Scots-Irish, English, and German descent.[3][4][5] She spent her childhood traveling throughout the United States and Europe.
Dunaway took dance classes, tap, piano and singing, and then studied at Boston University and Florida State University, and graduated from the University of Florida with a degree in theatre. In 1962, at the age of 21, she took acting classes at the American National Theater and Academy. She was spotted by Lloyd Richards while performing in a production of The Crucible, and was recommended to director Elia Kazan, who was in search of young talent for his Lincoln Center Repertory Company.
Shortly after graduating from college, Dunaway was already appearing on Broadway as a replacement Robert Bolt's drama A Man for All Seasons. She subsequently appeared in Arthur Miller's After the Fall and William Alfred's award-winning Hogan's Goat.
Career
Dunaway's first screen role was the 1967 The Happening, which starred Anthony Quinn. That role was followed by a supporting role in the 1967 film Hurry Sundown, a drama set in the South directed by Otto Preminger and co-starring Michael Caine and Jane Fonda. While she had difficulties with Preminger, her performance was well-received and she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best New Star of the Year.
Dunaway was cast as the bank robber Bonnie Parker in the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde, opposite Warren Beatty, who played Clyde Barrow in the film, which he also produced. Casting for the role of Bonnie had proved to be difficult; many actresses had been considered for the role, including Jane Fonda, Tuesday Weld, Ann-Margret, Carol Lynley, Leslie Caron, and Natalie Wood. Director Arthur Penn became convinced that Dunaway was the right choice for the role, and managed to convince Beatty.
The film, though controversial, was a smash hit, and elevated Dunaway to stardom. Newsweek said Dunaway's performance was "the revelation of the year," and made the comparison that Dunaway was first American actress to "electrify the world's moviegoers" since Marilyn Monroe.[6] The film was nominated for ten awards, including Best Picture and Best Actress for Dunaway, who lost to Katharine Hepburn. But Dunaway won the BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer and was now among the most bankable actresses in Hollywood.
Her role as Parker (along with Beatty's Barrow) was named by the American Film Institute to be one of the greatest villains to ever appear on screen – 32nd in a list of 50.[7]
Before the breakthrough of Bonnie and Clyde, director John Frankenheimer offered her a role in his new film The Extraordinary Seaman. The film also starred David Niven and Mickey Rooney, and was a comedy adventure set during World War II and got hostile notices from critics. Dunaway agreed with director Frankheimer that the finished result was a "disaster". The film, completed in 1967, was held up from release for two years.
The Thomas Crown Affair and career setbacks
Dunaway's starring role in the 1968 caper film The Thomas Crown Affair, opposite Steve McQueen in the title role, solidified her screen success. McQueen plays a millionaire who attempts to pull off the perfect crime, while Dunaway played an insurance investigator who becomes involved with Crown. Eva Marie Saint was considered for the role after Bridget Bardot rejected it, but the success of Bonnie and Clyde convinced McQueen and director Norman Jewison to offer the role to Dunaway. The film was immensely popular, and was famed for a scene where Dunaway and McQueen play a chess game and silently engage in heavy seduction of each other across the board.
With two consecutive successes in Bonnie and Clyde and The Thomas Crown Affair, Dunaway took on a role in an Italian film, A Place for Lovers. The film was a romantic tragedy in the vein of Camille where Dunaway played a terminally ill fashion designer who has a doomed romance with an Italian race car driver (Marcello Mastroianni). Like The Extraordinary Seamen, the film was heavily panned by critics; the critic of The Los Angeles Times claimed it was the most mediocre film he had seen since 1926.
Her next film role was in Elia Kazan's The Arrangement, based on Kazan's novel and also starring Kirk Douglas. The film was panned by critics. She had a small role in Arthur Penn's 1970 revisionist Western Little Big Man. In a rare comic role, Dunaway played the sexually-frustrated wife of a minister who helps raise and seduce a boy raised by Native Americans (played by Dustin Hoffman). The film was one of Dunaway's few commercial successes at this point. After the film was finished, she appeared in the lead role in in The Deadly Trap, directed by Rene Clement, and Puzzle of a Downfall Child, an experimental drama inspired by the life of model Ann Saint Marie, directed by Jerry Schatzberg. The film failed to generate commercial interest, though it earned for Dunaway a second Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress, The film remained in obscurity over forty years, until it was revived at the Cannes Film Festival in honor of Dunaway.
She also played opposite George C. Scott in the Stanley Kramer film Oklahoma Crude in 1973.
Career revival with Chinatown and Towering Inferno
Dunaway's career, which had slumped after The Thomas Crown Affair, only saw one or two truly successful films between 1968 and 1973. Oklahoma Crude was not a success, but Dunaway's other 1973 film fared much better. Ilya Salkind and Alexander Salkind hired Dunaway to take on the villainous role of Milady de Winter in their all-star adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers. The film starred Michael York, Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain, Raquel Welch, and Dunaway in the leading roles. Eventually, the Salkinds and director Richard Lester decided to split the film into two parts: 1973's The Three Musketeers and 1974's The Four Musketeers. Critics and audiences alike praised the film for its action and its comic tone, and it was the first in a line of successful projects for Dunaway.
A professional loss came in 1974 when Dunaway lost the role of Daisy Buchanan in the remake of The Great Gatsby to actress Mia Farrow. Dunaway said in a later interview that she was extremely disappointed to lose the role, even making a reference to work in her 1996 autobiography Looking for Gatsby. However, 1974 would prove to be one of the defining years of Dunaway's career.
Roman Polanski, after having previously considered Julie Christie and Jane Fonda, offered Dunaway the lead role of Evelyn Mulwray in his mystery neo-noir Chinatown, allegedly saying that he wanted a 'difficult' actress for the role. She accepted the challenging and complex role of Evelyn Mulwray, a shadowy femme fatale who knows more than she is willing to let Detective J.J. Gittes (played by Jack Nicholson) know. Dunaway got along well with Nicholson, even describing him years afterward as a "soul mate".
Her relationship with director Polanski was much less successful. Polanski and Dunaway fought constantly on how to approach the complex heroine; Dunaway wrote that she would ask for Polanski's direction and he would merely tell her to say her lines and that her salary was her only motivation. Despite the complications on the set, the film was finished and released to glowing reviews. It made back its budget almost five times, and received 11 Academy Award nominations. Dunaway received a second Best Actress nomination, and also received a Golden Globe nomination and a BAFTA nomination.
Dunaway's third project in 1974 was the all-star disaster epic The Towering Inferno. She played the role of Paul Newman's girlfriend, who is trapped in a burning skyscraper along with several other hundred people. The film became the highest grossing film of the year, furthering cementing Dunaway as a top actress in Hollywood. It was also in 1974 that Dunaway married Peter Wolf, who was the lead singer of the rock group The J. Geils Band.
In 1975, Dunaway joined Robert Redford in the political thriller Three Days of the Condor. A significant critical and commercial success, the film continues to be praised. Dunaway's performance was very well regarded. She received another Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama.
Network and the 1970s
In 1976, she was cast in the Paddy Chayefsky scripted satire Network as the scheming TV executive Diana Christensen, a ruthless woman who will do anything for higher ratings. When a news anchor named Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch) goes mad and rants on the air (the iconic line "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!" is featured here), Dunaway's character decides to capitalize on this and builds a television show around him. William Holden's character, who engages in an affair with Diana, eventually sees her soullessness and the soullessness of television.
The film, a success in its own day, is frequently discussed today due to its almost prophetic take on the television industry. Dunaway's performance was lauded, with Vincent Canby of The New York Times saying that she "in particular, is successful in making touching and funny a woman of psychopathic ambition and lack of feeling."
Dunaway's performance in Network earned her many awards. She was named Best Actress in the Kansas City Film Critics Awards, and she also received mentions from the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics. She received her sixth Golden Globe nomination for Network and was awarded Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama. In early 1977, the Academy Awards nominated Network for ten awards, with Dunaway winning in her third Best Actress nomination.
Dunaway turned down a supporting role in Alfred Hitchcock's final film, the comic thriller Family Plot, which she later lamented. Her other theatrical work in 1976 was the Holocaust drama Voyage of the Damned in which she headlined a large ensemble of actors.
After Damned, she was cast in a television film based on the life of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, titled The Disappearance of Aimee. The film covered a controversial episode in 1926 where the evangelist could not be found for over four weeks. In the role of Aimee's mother, screen legend Bette Davis was cast. Dunaway had been looking forward to working with the Hollywood icon, but problems began to arise between the two actresses. Davis had asked Dunaway and the director, Anthony Harvey, to rewrite a key scene in the script, where Aimee's mother confronts her daughter about her disappearance. Davis thought that the scene would work better if it focused on the mother, but Dunaway and Harvey did not agree. Davis was very upset, and became very annoyed with Dunaway's behavior during production. Davis claimed that Dunaway would immediately leave the set when the director finished a scene, and often showed up late to work, keeping the cast and crew waiting. The two actresses would not work again, and Davis described Dunaway years later as "difficult to work with" and "very unprofessional".
Dunaway did not appear in another film until 1978. Jane Fonda, a friend and earlier co-star in Hurry Sundown, asked Dunaway to co-star with her in Julia, a drama based on a work of Lillian Hellman. Fonda, who was to play Hellman, wanted Dunaway to play the title role of 'Julia', a friend of Hellman's who fought against the Nazis before the second World War. Dunaway turned Fonda down, wishing "to be quieter somehow" after her Oscar win. She later regretted not taking on the role. Vanessa Redgrave took on the role of Julia and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
She returned to the screen in 1978's Eyes of Laura Mars, a thriller about a fashion photographer who sees visions of a killer murdering people. Mars was a success at the box office. She had a small role as Annie in Franco Zeffirelli's remake of The Champ with Jon Voight.
Mommie Dearest
In 1980, Dunaway accepted a small role in support of Frank Sinatra in The First Deadly Sin, a thriller which ended up being Sinatra's final starring role. After completing the film, she played the title role in Evita Peron, a television miniseries based on the life of the famed First Lady of Argentina.
Director Frank Perry, who had earlier directed Dunaway and Stacy Keach in 1971's Doc offered Dunaway the role of actress Joan Crawford in the adaptation of Christina Crawford's controversial memoirs, Mommie Dearest. Christina Crawford's book had depicted her adopted mother as an abusive tyrant, who only adopted her four children to promote her career, and it made quite a stir as the first celebrity tell-all book. The film adaptation had been slated to star actress Anne Bancroft as Crawford, but Bancroft pulled out of the film at the last minute, claiming the film was an unfair "hatchet job" on the screen legend Crawford. In order to play the role, Dunaway researched Crawford's films and met with many of Crawford's friends and co-workers, including George Cukor (who wanted to cast Dunaway in a biopic of suffragette Victoria Woodhull). Dunaway threw herself into the role, allegedly telling Christina Crawford that she could feel the elder Crawford's spirit.
In Looking for Gatsby, Dunaway revealed that she screamed herself hoarse during the film's infamous "No wire hangers!" tantrum scene and described filming to James Lipton as "a real nightmare". The film premiered in September 1981 to lacerating reviews. (Television host and film critic Richard Crouse noted that the film earned "some of the nastiest reviews ever".) Roger Ebert, of The Chicago Sun-Times opened his review by stating, "I can't imagine who would want to subject themselves to this movie," and went on to criticize the film's narrative sense, sensationalism, and the relationship between Joan and Christina Crawford. Variety slammed the film and Dunaway's performance, claiming that "Dunaway does not chew scenery. Dunaway starts neatly at each corner of the set in every scene and swallows it whole, co-stars and all".
Though the film was poorly received by the critics at the time, Dunaway's performance received mixed reviews. Janet Maslin, while dismissing the film as incoherent, wrote that Dunaway's performance was "a small miracle" and praised Dunaway's energy and commitment to the role. The usually harsh Pauline Kael raved about Dunaway's performance, stating that she had reached new heights as an actress and surmised that it would be difficult for Dunaway to top her performance as Crawford. Despite the good reviews from Kael, Maslin, and others, the film (and Dunaway's performance) was generally reviled.
After the hostile reaction from critics, the film continued to play in theatres. But after the first month of release, various audiences began to watch the film in an ironic light, laughing at Dunaway's performance and ridiculing various campy lines and situations. Audiences flocked to see the film and took Ajax cleaning solution and wire hangers to "participate" in the screenings (similar to the The Rocky Horror Picture Show screenings). Paramount Pictures decided to capitalize on the film's reputation as an unintentional comedy, and began to promote the film as a camp classic. Dunaway was horrified and upset to find the film now had the tagline of "Meet the biggest MOTHER of them all!", feeling that her work had been reduced to little more than a joke. She refused to advertise the film and participate in its release.
Dunaway was named runner-up for the Best Actress award at both the New York Film Critics Circle Awards and the National Society of Film Critics Awards for her work in Mommie Dearest. Dunaway told interviewer James Lipton that she was uncomfortable with being associated with the Mommie Dearest persona, and felt people attributed many of Crawford's diva-like qualities to Dunaway herself. In the early 2000s, Dunaway began to refuse to discuss the film at all.
Following the same distinction for her interpretation of Bonnie Parker, the American Film Institute again named a Dunaway interpretation, this of Crawford, to be one of the greatest villainous characters in cinema history – 41st in a list of 50,[8] and named the infamous line, "No wire hangers, ever!" to be one of the most memorable film quotes of all time.
She enjoyed, briefly (12 previews, 32 performances),[9] a return to Broadway starring in The Curse of An Aching Heart, by William Alfred. The play opened at the Little Theatre (now Helen Hayes Theatre) on Jan 25, 1982. "The beauteous and appealing star gives a winning performance..",[10] ".. Miss Dunaway's absence from the theater has not dimmed her stage technique. She's usually in command."[11]
Dunaway then, in 1982, portrayed Georgie Elgin (the 1954 Academy Award winning role for Grace Kelly) for television in a reproduction of the Clifford Odets original 1950 play The Country Girl. It was during this time that Dunaway moved to England with her partner of several years, the English photographer Terry O'Neill. Being more interested in her married life, she only took on work that was "convenient" for her, and often picked substandard or even mediocre projects to appear in. Laurence Olivier asked her to play the role of Regan in his television adaptation of King Lear, but she turned him down. Instead, she agreed to do the The Wicked Lady, which was a commercial and artistic failure.
After Wicked Lady, Dunaway played the lead villain in the new superhero film, Supergirl. The film flopped. Roger Ebert noted in his review of Supergirl that Dunaway's most recent performances had all been derivative of her performance in Mommie Dearest.
In 1984 she appeared in a television miniseries, Ellis Island. Dunaway played the role of highly stylish actress Maud Charteris who marries a Senator played by Richard Burton. Dunaway received complimentary reviews, and won her second Golden Globe for her work. The following year, she appeared in the miniseries, Christopher Columbus.
She appeared in two Agatha Christie adaptations, Ordeal by Innocence and Thirteen at Dinner (which was made for television). Dunaway said that she struggled to find artistically fulfilling roles during this period in England. She turned down a chance to star on the nighttime soap opera The Colbys around this time as well.[12] She and her husband attempted to bring the play Duet for One to the screen with O'Neill directing and Dunaway in the leading role, but their plans fell through. The film was eventually made in 1986 with Julie Andrews in the lead role.
Independent films and stage roles
In 1987, Dunaway began appearing in independent films. French director Barbet Schroeder gave star billing as an alcoholic alongside Mickey Rourke in the drama Barfly. The film was produced by the struggling Cannon Films, and the producers had to fight to get the small drama approved. Produced on a budget of $3,000,000, Dunaway and Rourke played seedy alcoholics. The film was a small success at the box office, but received excellent reviews from critics, the best Dunaway had received in over a decade. Dunaway received her sixth Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress.
In 1989, she produced Cold Sassy Tree, Dunaway played an enchanting dressmaker, who lightens up the lives of a young boy (Neil Patrick Harris) and his grandfather (veteran actor Richard Widmark), whom she marries to the town's disapproval. The film aired on TNT, and received decent reviews from critics.
She appeared with Robert Duvall, with whom she had co-starred in Network, and actress Natasha Richardson in The Handmaid's Tale (1990). She received an offer from Serbian director Emir Kusturica to star alongside Johnny Depp and Jerry Lewis in a new film. Dunaway accepted the role, and began work on Arizona Dream, surreal comedy-drama. Dunaway played the role of Elaine, a somewhat crazy woman who dreams of building a flying machine. The film premiered in France in early 1993 to great acclaim. Dunaway was very proud of the film, and believed that her role could bring her career to higher heights than ever. However, Warner Bros., elected to re-edit Kusturica's film, cutting it down and changing several things. Dunaway was dismayed to find that her some of her best scenes were left out of the American version. Warner Bros. released the film in 1994 to positive reviews, but little box office.
Dunaway was cast as the leading lady of a sitcom, It Had to Be You with actor Robert Urich.[13] The series did not work, and was cancelled after four episodes had aired. NBC contacted Dunaway and wanted her to take on the role of a female sleuth, more in the vein of Columbo than Murder, She Wrote. As the prospective series was being developed, Dunaway contacted Columbo star Peter Falk, wanting his advice on how to approach playing a sleuth character. While discussing the role, Falk told Dunaway about a Columbo script that he had written himself. The episode, entitled It's All in the Game featured a sexy society woman who plays a game of cat-and-mouse with Lt. Columbo in the midst of a murder. Falk had written the script some years prior, saying that he could not find the right actress to take on the role. He offered her the role, and Dunaway accepted immediately. The TV movie proved a success; it was nominated for several Golden Globe Awards and Emmy Awards. Dunaway was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for the 1993-1994 television season. She would win the award, saying that it was that moment when she felt like she was truly home.
With the prospective detective show not working out, Dunaway became interested in returning to the stage. She auditioned to replace Glenn Close in the musical Sunset Boulevard, a stage version of 1950 film of the same name. The composer and producer Andrew Lloyd Webber cast Dunaway in the famed role of Norma Desmond, and Dunaway began rehearsing to take over the LA engagement from Close when Close moved the show to Broadway. Tickets went on sale for Dunaway's engagement, but shortly after the rehearsals started, Webber and his associates announced that Dunaway was unable to sing to their desired standards. They announced that when Close finished her engagement, the show would shut down completely. Dunaway filed a lawsuit, claiming that Webber had damaged her reputation with his claims. The case went to court and a settlement was later reached, but Dunaway and the producers have not discussed it.
After the Sunset Blvd. debacle, Dunaway appeared with Marlon Brando and Johnny Depp in the romantic comedy Don Juan DeMarco (1995). A hit at the box office, the film was praised for its romance and the performances of the three main characters. Three unsuccessful films followed, but Dunaway received a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard.[14][15] She returned to the stage in 1996, playing famed opera singer Maria Callas in the Tony Award winning play Master Class by Terrence McNally. Dunaway toured the play through the United States. In 1998, she starred with Angelina Jolie in Gia, which would win Dunaway a third Golden Globe and win Jolie both a Golden Globe and an Emmy.
Recent career
In 2000, she turned down Requiem for a Dream[16] and appeared in The Yards. In the following years Dunaway appeared mostly in television guest-roles and small independent movies.[15] In 2006, Dunaway played a character named Lois O'Neill in season six, episode 13 of the crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, titled "Kiss-Kiss, Bye-Bye". She also appeared on Touched by an Angel and Grey's Anatomy. She served as a judge on the 2005 reality show The Starlet, which sought, American Idol-style, to find the next young actress with the potential to become a major star. In the spring of 2007, the direct-to-DVD movie release of Rain, based on the novel by V. C. Andrews and starring Dunaway, was released.
Dunaway announced in 2009 that she had secured financing and planned to direct and star in a film version of the McNally play Master Class, with her son Liam Dunaway O'Neill playing an opera student. The production was plagued by lawsuits and difficulties in financing the film, but in 2013, she said that three-quarters of the film had been shot.[17] However, in June 2014, Dunaway withdrew from the project and HBO announced that Mike Nichols would produce a film of Master Class with Meryl Streep as Callas.[18]
In October 2014, Dunaway was guest of honor at the Lumière Film Festival in Lyons, France.[19][20]
Personal life
Dunaway was engaged to Jerry Schatzberg,[21] who directed her in Puzzle of a Downfall Child, and had two-year live-in relationship with actor Marcello Mastroianni, her co-star in A Place for Lovers. In 1974, Dunaway married Peter Wolf, the lead singer of the rock group The J. Geils Band; they divorced in 1979.[1] From 1983 to 1987, she was married to Terry O'Neill, a British photographer.[22] She and O'Neill have one child, Liam O'Neill (born 1980). In 2003, despite Dunaway's earlier claims that she had given birth to Liam, Terry claimed that Liam was adopted.[22]
Dunaway is an adult convert to Roman Catholicism.[3][23][24]
In August, 2011, Dunaway was sued for eviction by the landlord of her rent stabilized apartment in Manhattan. The suit alleged that she was not actually residing in the apartment but rather lived in California. Dunaway said that she had not been evicted, but had "chosen to leave because of the state of the apartment, and also because I am spending less and less time in New York.”[25][26]
Filmography
Year Title Role Notes
Television appearances
Year Title Role Notes
Theatre performances
Year Title Role Notes
Awards and nominations
Year Association Category Nominated work Result
References
External links
1941 |
January 14, 1941
|
Bascom, Jackson County, Florida, United States
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