Faye Dunaway - Career

Career

Dunaway appeared on Broadway in 1962 as the daughter of Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons. Her first screen role was in 1967 in The Happening. In 1967, she was in Hurry Sundown; that same year, she gained the leading female role in Bonnie and Clyde opposite Warren Beatty, which earned her an Oscar nomination. She also starred in 1968 with Steve McQueen in the caper film The Thomas Crown Affair (and had a small role in the 1999 remake with the same title with Pierce Brosnan). In the 1970s, she starred in such films as Three Days of the Condor, Little Big Man, Chinatown, The Three/Four Musketeers, Eyes of Laura Mars, and Network, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress as the scheming TV executive Diana Christensen. She worked with such leading men as Dustin Hoffman, Charlton Heston, Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Tommy Lee Jones, Jack Nicholson, and Robert Duvall.

In the 1980s, although her performances did not waver, the parts grew less compelling. Dunaway would later blame Mommie Dearest (1981). She received a Razzie Award for Worst Actress, and the critics despised the film, although it grossed a moderate $19 million in its first release and was one of the top 30 grossing films of the year. She received top billing for her villainess role in Supergirl (1984), which reviewed poorly as well and yielded disappointing box office returns. A turnaround came in 1987 with her performance opposite Mickey Rourke in Barfly, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama. In a later movie, Don Juan DeMarco (1995), Dunaway co-starred with Johnny Depp and Marlon Brando.

Dunaway starred in the 1986 made-for-television movie Beverly Hills Madam opposite Melody Anderson, Donna Dixon, Terry Farrell and Robin Givens. She had earlier turned down the role of Sable Colby on The Colbys, the Aaron Spelling spin-off of the nighttime soap opera Dynasty. In 1993, Dunaway briefly starred in a sitcom with Robert Urich, It Had to Be You. She also starred in Arizona Dream in 1993. Dunaway won an Emmy for a 1994 role as a murderer in "It's All in the Game," an episode of the long-running mystery series Columbo. In 1996, she toured nationally with the stage play Master Class about opera singer Maria Callas was well received.On October 2, 1996, Dunaway was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard.

In 2000, she turned down Requiem for a Dream and appeared in The Yards. In the following years Dunaway appears mostly in television guest roles and small independent movies. 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 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.