FAYE DUNAWAY
Makes a comeback at 75 with her new TV series, Hand of God.
Stars often bring strange things onto red carpets, but Faye Dunaway takes the cake — and weighs it. The screen icon showed up for the amfAR gala at this year’s Cannes Film Festival with a scale to calculate the weight of her food and determine the calories. “Faye watches closely what she eats,” a friend tells Closer. “To her, carrying a scale is a sensible, not eccentric, thing to do.”
As Faye puts it, “It doesn’t really matter what other people think.” Now she’s making another unexpected move, taking on a TV series role at 75 after having not appeared onscreen for six years. She’s joining the upcoming second season of Amazon’s dark drama Hand of God, opposite Ron Perlman and Dana Delany. “Faye said, ‘Oh, why the hell not?’ ” an insider tells Closer. “She still sees herself as an actress who has something to offer.”
She’s certainly got plenty of talent. After her breakout role in 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde, the Bascom, Fla., native starred in a string of acclaimed hits and won an Oscar for 1976’s Network. But her demanding-diva reputation caused a career slowdown, especially after she refused to promote 1981’s Mommie Dearest in a dispute with the studio over its kitschy marketing. “It gave her a reputation that she could bite the hand that feeds her,” her friend says. “She got labeled, ‘Doesn’t play well with others.’ ”
That might not be a fair description. “It could just mean she’s a perfectionist,” says David Thomson, author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film. “Sometimes when the very male film business says an actress is ‘difficult,’ it means she’s an intelligent woman who’s not going to take the usual kind of garbage.”
HAPPY ON HER OWN
Faye has experienced conflict in her personal life as well. Her marriages to J. Geils Band rocker Peter Wolf (from 1974 to 1979) and fashion photographer Terry O’Neill (1983 to 1987) both ended in divorce. “It’s awfully hard to make marriage work,” Faye says. “To have to think about somebody else so much of the time…it’s such a compromise.”
Her second marriage brought Faye son Liam, 36. “They have a very tender relationship,” says Danielle de Niese, who co-starred with both in the film Master Class.
With Liam often accompanying her to events, Faye’s not looking for romantic companionship these days. “Once you reach a certain age, you realize that men aren’t as important as you once thought they were,” she says.
Besides, she’s happy with her single life. Despite a fortune estimated at $40 million, she lives in a modest West Hollywood condo a few blocks from Liam. “She goes out most every day for a walk, does her own shopping and stops off for lunch,” the insider says. Adds her friend, “While she occasionally attends a social gathering, she seems happy with her own company.”
Even former co-stars put off by her unconventional behavior are willing to forgive her. “It was a very challenging shoot because you never knew what to expect,” says Rutanya Alda, who chronicles Faye’s erratic ways in her book The Mommie Dearest Diary: Carol Ann Tells All. “But I’m happy for her, and I wish her well.” Hollywood may be, as Faye says, “a hard town to survive,” but she’s proven herself tough enough to do just that.
— Bruce Fretts, with reporting by
Melissa Roberto
FIGHTING BACK AGAINST HER ‘DIFFICULT’ REPUTATION, THE LEGENDARY OSCAR WINNER REFUSES TO SLOW DOWN AT 75
HER GREATEST ROLES
BONNIE AND CLYDE Faye calls her
1967 role as a gangster (with Warren Beatty) “the closest to me…a smalltown girl, hungry and wanting to get ahead. She’s a part of me to this day.” CHINATOWN She clashed with director Roman Polanski on the set of the twisty 1974 thriller, but co-star Jack Nicholson “always had her back,” says a friend. MOMMIE DEAREST “It pained her greatly that it became seen as a camp classic,” a friend says of Faye’s 1981 Joan Crawford biopic, a cult favorite.