Faye Dunaway's Life in Photos, From "Bonnie and Clyde" to Her Career-Spanning Documentary
John Russell
July 12, 2024 at 10:23 PM
With new documentary 'Faye' premiering July 13 on HBO, take a look back at the screen legend's storied career
Celebrated for her luminous beauty and fierce performances, dogged by a reputation for being "difficult," Faye Dunaway has been a Hollywood icon since the 1960s.
Born Dorothy Faye Dunaway in Bascom, Florida, on January 14, 1941, Dunaway told PEOPLE in 1974, "I can't remember not knowing I was going to be an actress."
That clarity of purpose has seen the now-83-year-old through the highest of career highs, a few notorious stumbles and an at-times turbulent personal life. Now, a revealing new HBO documentary, Faye, seeks to set the record straight on one of the most complicated stars in the Hollywood firmament.
As Faye premieres on July 13, take a look back at Dunaway's life in photos.
Early Success
After earning a B.F.A. in theater from Boston University and three years performing with the Lincoln Center Repertory Company in New York, Dunaway found early success on Broadway. Film roles in The Happening and Hurry Sundown (opposite Michael Caine and Jane Fonda) followed in 1967.
'Bonnie and Clyde'
Dunaway's third film, 1967's Bonnie and Clyde, catapulted her to stardom. The then-26-year-old earned her first Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her starring performance as Bonnie Parker opposite Warren Beatty's Clyde Barrow.
The 'Bonnie and Clyde' Premiere in Paris
Quickly becoming a fashion icon, Dunaway mixed very-'60s eye makeup and feathered coat with a Bonnie-esque beret at the Paris premiere of Bonnie and Clyde, with the dashing Beatty along for the ride.
A Style Influencer
"It was massive what happened to me with Bonnie and Clyde," Dunaway, seen here in a 1968 photo for Newsweek, told PEOPLE in 1995. "Everywhere I went, people looked like me, wearing berets or whatever I was wearing. It was strange. But it was great too."
Faye Dunaway at the 41st Annual Academy Awards
Dunaway attended the 41st Annual Academy Awards in 1968, where she was nominated for Best Actress for her Bonnie and Clyde performance.
'The Thomas Crown Affair'
Dunaway followed up Bonnie and Clyde with another instant classic, The Thomas Crown Affair. In the film, Dunaway played an private investigator caught up in an affair with the wealthy mastermind behind a bank heist, played by another '60s heartthrob, Steve McQueen.
'Chinatown'
A streak of disappointing films followed in the late '60s and early '70s, but in 1974 Dunaway came roaring back with a bravura performance opposite Jack Nicholson in director Roman Polanski's neo-noir mystery Chinatown. Her role as femme fatale Evelyn Mulwray earned Dunaway her second Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, but the actress famously clashed with Polanski, whom she later described in her 1995 autobiography as "domineering and abrasive."
Faye Dunaway Marries Peter Wolf
Following high-profile relationships with comedian Lenny Bruce, photographer Jerry Schatzberg and Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni, Dunaway married The J. Geils Band frontman Peter Wolf in 1974.
In a 1977 PEOPLE cover story, Dunaway recalled seeing Wolf for the first time: "His performance electrified me," she said. "I felt I had to get to know him."
The couple would later divorce in 1979 citing the strain their demanding careers put on their relationship.
'Network'
Successful turns in The Four Musketeers, The Towering Inferno, Voyage of the Damned and the paranoid thriller classic Three Days of the Condor followed. But nothing compared to Dunaway's performance as a cutthroat TV exec in 1976's Network.
Faye Dunaway Wins at the Oscars
Dunaway's performance in Network earned her a third Academy Award nomination, and in 1977 she took home the Oscar for Best Actress.
An Iconic Post-Oscars Photo
The morning after the 49th Academy Awards, photographer and future husband Terry O'Neill convinced Dunaway to pose for what may be the most famous post-Oscars image ever.
In the new HBO doc, Dunaway explains that O'Neill staged the photo at the Beverly Hills Hotel. "He didn't want a traditional kind of picture where the actress is standing with the Oscar," she says.
"What I love is, 'Is that all there is?' was kind of the theme to it," she continues, adding that the photo is "bittersweet" because the newspapers scattered around her bore headlines about her Network costar Peter Finch's posthumous Best Actor win following his death three months earlier.
Faye Dunaway Meets Future Husband Terry O'Neill
Dunaway met her second husband, Terry O'Neill, when the British photographer was assigned to snap pics of the actress and then-husband Peter Wolf for PEOPLE.
"We fell in love," Dunaway told the magazine in 1981, adding of her marriage to Wolf: "It was finished before I met Terry. It was just a question of two lives that we'd hoped would come together and didn't on any real level."
Faye Dunaway Welcomes Son Liam
In 1980, Dunaway and O'Neill welcomed their son, Liam. "I've always wanted children," Dunaway told PEOPLE in 1981, "but my relationships always seemed so complicated. As it happened I'm happy I did wait because I'm glad Terry's the father."
Dunaway and O'Neill married in 1982 and remained together for five years. They divorced in 1987.
Dunaway Films 'Mommie Dearest'
In 1981, Dunaway took on what would become, for better or worse, her most famous role. While the Joan Crawford biopic Mommie Dearest -- based on Crawford's adopted daughter Christina's 1978 memoir of her late mother's alleged abuse -- was panned by critics, Dunaway's over-the-top performance as the screen icon has made the film a beloved camp classic.
Dunaway, however, doesn't share fans' fondness for the film or its legacy. "I think it turned my career in a direction where people would irretrievably have the wrong impression of me - and that's an awful hard thing to beat," she told PEOPLE in 2016. "It's unfortunate they felt they had to make that kind of movie."
Faye Dunaway's "Difficult" Reputation
Dunaway's performance as Crawford in Mommie Dearest may have cemented her image in the public imagination as a demanding, some what tyrannical diva. But long before the film's release she had earned a reputation for being "difficult." In 1974, Chinatown director Roman Polanski famously described her as "a gigantic pain in the ass" in an interview with Rolling Stone. Mommie Dearest producer Frank Yablans told PEOPLE in 1981 that Dunaway was "incredibly demanding," but added that he would "take her any day over someone who doesn't care."
But perhaps the harshest criticism of Dunaway's on-set behavior came from screen legend Bette Davis, who costarred with her in the 1976 NBC TV movie The Disappearance of Aimee. In her 1987 memoir, Davis claimed that Dunaway would show up to set hours late not knowing her lines. She also described Dunaway as "totally impossible," "uncooperative" and "unprofessional" during a 1988 interview with Johnny Carson.
Dunaway in Her 'Supergirl' Era
Dunaway's camp era continued with 1984's Supergirl. While the film wasn't a huge critical or commercial success, Dunaway's over-the-top performance as a sultry and stylish -- if slightly bumbling -- witch still has its fans.
In her 1995 autobiography, Dunaway wrote that she approached the film as a "spoof" and "had a lot of fun" playing her character. But in 2016, she told The Independentthat she once again clashed with the film's director, Jeannot Szwarc. "Every time I tried to do something funny, he wouldn't let me," she said.
Dunaway Does 'Barfly'
Following a three-year period in which she mainly appeared in television roles, Dunaway earned critical acclaim and her eighth Golden Globe nomination for her dressed-down performance as an alcoholic in 1987's Barfly.
Faye Dunaway Is a Fashion Icon
Despite her vanity-free performance in Barfly, Dunaway remained as stunning as ever at age 46 at a screening of the film at New York City's Lincoln Center.
Faye Dunaway Gets Her Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Dunaway continued to work steadily through the '90s, with notable roles in the 1990 film adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale and opposite Marlon Brando and Johnny Depp in 1994's Don Juan DeMarco.
After nearly three decades on Hollywood's A-list, Dunaway was finally awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1996.
Faye Dunaway Enters Shondaland
Dunaway's notable film appearances in the late-'90s and early 2000s included small and supporting roles in the 1999 remake of The Thomas Crown Affair, The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc and in 2002 adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis's novel The Rules of Attraction.
No stranger to TV, she also appeared in recurring roles on Touched by an Angel and Alias, and made a memorable guest appearance in a 2009 episode of Grey's Anatomy.
Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty Present the Oscar for Best Picture
In 2017, Dunaway reunited with her Bonnie and Clyde co-star Warren Beatty to present the Oscar for Best Picture at the 89th Academy Awards. But the reunion was overshadowed by one of the most infamous snafus in Oscar history. Beatty and Dunaway were reportedly handed an extra envelope for La La Land star Emma Stone's Best Actress award before they walked out onstage, leading Dunaway to mistakenly announce the Damien Chazelle filmas the Best Picture winner when she saw the film's title along with Stone's name.
Chaos ensued: La La Land's producers were in the middle of their acceptance speeches when Oscars producers rushed onstage to inform them that director Barry Jenkins's Moonlight had in fact won the award for Best Picture.
"I was very guilty. I thought I could have done something, surely. Why didn't I see Emma Stone's name on the top of the card?" Dunaway later told NBC's Lester Holt. "Something about that moment, in front of the entire world, all those lights, all our history -- I think just combined to make us both not able to perform what normally one would perform. Normally you would say, 'This is the wrong card.' But it didn't happen that way."
Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty's Best Picture Do-Over
The following year, Dunaway and Beatty returned to the Oscars stage for a do-over, presenting the award for Best Picture to The Shape of Water director Guillermo del Toro and producer J. Miles Dale.
Controversy Continues to Swirl Around Faye Dunaway
Reports of Dunaway's "difficult" behavior continued even into her late 70s. In July 2019, the then-78-year-old actress was fired from Broadway-bound play Tea at Five after starring in its run at Boston's Huntington Theatre. That same month, the New York Post reported that Dunaway had allegedly slapped members of the play's crew backstage. Tea at Five playwright Matthew Lombardo seemed to confirm the report when he shared the Post story on Facebook along with the comment "Ummm. Yup."
The following August, Dunaway's gay former assistant filed a lawsuit against her alleging that she had subjected him to "relentless" verbal harassment, including making "demeaning" comments about his sexuality.
Dunaway did not comment on either allegation at the time.
Faye Dunaway Attends the Cannes Film Festival
In May, Dunaway attended the 2024 Cannes Film Festival with her son Liam. Both the actress and her son participated in the making of Faye, director Laurent Bouzereau's documentary about her life and career, which had its world premiere at the festival.
Notably, Dunaway discusses her bipolar disorder diagnosis for the first time in the film, citing the illness as an explanation for her famously erratic behavior.
"I worked with a group of doctors who analyzed my behavior, who gave me prescriptions for pills they thought would be good for me. And that helped," she reveals in the doc according to Page Six. "So I am quieter. But throughout my career, people know there were tough times. I don't mean to make an excuse about it. I am still responsible for my actions."
Faye Dunaway Promotes 'Faye'
With Faye premiering on HBO July 13 at 8pm, Dunaway has been busily promoting the documentary. On July 8, she stopped by Live with Kelly & Mark to talk about the film, and was photographed looking characteristically regal in New York City.
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