Faye Dunaway became one of the reigning screen sirens of New Hollywood in the 1960s and 1970s, astonishing the world with her beauty and talent.
But over the years her stardom was gradually eclipsed by her fearsome reputation, as feuds and claims of diva behavior swallowed up her image.
From a battle of wills with Bette Davis in the 1970s to the accusations she slapped a crew member just five years ago, Faye has always been a lightning rod for scandal.
Maya Rudolph even parodied her on Saturday Night Live last weekend, spoofing an old video that recently went viral of Faye stopping an ad shoot to scold a crew member: ‘Could you leave, please? You’re right in my eyeline.’
Now, with her new documentary Faye about to premiere at Cannes, DailyMail.com looks back at some of her wildest moments…
With her new documentary about to premiere at Cannes, DailyMail.com looks back at some of Faye Dunaway’s wildest moments; Faye pictured at Cannes this Wednesday
CLASH OF THE TITANS: Faye Dunaway v. Bette Davis
Bette Davis had her own reputation for prickliness – to the point Joan Collins, who worked with her on the 1955 drama The Virgin Queen, later called her an ‘ogre.’
But Bette may have met her match when she was cast opposite Faye in the 1976 television movie The Disappearance Of Aimee.
Faye played Aimee Semple McPherson, a famous 1920s evangelist who vanished and then resurfaced under murky circumstances, with Bette as her mother.
‘I can imagine no circumstances under which I would work again with Miss Dunaway,’ Bette declared in her memoir This ‘N That.
She accused Faye of arriving to set late without learning her lines, after nights spent ‘sipping champagne in the backseat’ of her ‘chauffer-driven limousine.’
Once, almost 2,000 extras – working without pay – had to be kept waiting for Faye for hours in a large tabernacle in sweltering summer heat, according to Bette’s book.
In order to stop them from leaving, Bette spontaneously broke into a rendition of her song I’ve Written A Letter To Daddy from Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?.
‘Well, she’s just totally impossible,’ Bette said of Fay on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson. ‘I don’t think we have time to go into all the reasons.’
She denounced Faye as ‘uncooperative’ and a ‘very unprofessional, difficult woman,’ adding: ‘I have never behaved in an unprofessional manner, ever.’
Faye herself has staunchly denied Bette’s characterization of their working experience, arguing: ‘I was just the target of her blind rage at the one sin Hollywood never forgives in its leading ladies: growing old.’
Bette Davis and Faye had an infamous feud when they played a mother and daughter in the 1976 television movie The Disappearance Of Aimee
‘Well, she’s just totally impossible,’ Bette said of Fay on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson: ‘I don’t think we have time to go into all the reasons’
MOMMIE DEAREST: The woman, the myth, the legend
Although she won an Oscar for her searing performance in Network, the movie that became indelibly fused with her public persona is Mommie Dearest, in which she played Joan Crawford
Although Faye won an Oscar for her searing performance in Network, the movie that became indelibly fused with her public persona is Mommie Dearest.
The 1981 film was based on an infamous memoir by Joan Crawford’s daughter Christina, who depicted her movie star mother as an abusive alcoholic.
Faye delivered a riotously over-the-top performance as Joan, chewing the scenery in a high-camp turn that became instant catnip for parodists and drag queens.
Rutanya Alda, one of the supporting cast members, later painted a hair-raising picture of the making of Mommie Dearest.
During the iconic scene when Joan beats Christina while shrieking: ‘No wire hangers!’, Faye accidentally ‘missed’ and struck 10-year-old actress Mara Hobel so hard that ‘child welfare was gonna get called,’ Rutanya claimed.
‘Faye realized that she’d gone a little bit too far, and they drove for a couple of hours and they got all kinds of toys for Mara, so she was bought off,’ Rutanya alleged.
Crew members were said to be similarly unimpressed, with costume designer Irene Sharaff reportedly comparing Faye to a two-year-old.
When the movie came out, Faye’s explosive performance fitted almost too perfectly with the already swirling rumors that she was – as her Chinatown director Roman Polanski once described her – ‘a gigantic pain in the a**.’
Her manic turn in the film become so intertwined with her image that she resented being asked about Mommie Dearest in later interviews.
While filming an abuse scene, Faye accidentally ‘missed’ and struck 10-year-old actress Mara Hobel (right) so hard that ‘child welfare was gonna get called,’ co-star Rutanya Alda claimed
Faye delivered a riotously over-the-top performance as Joan, chewing the scenery in a high-camp turn that became instant cat nip for parodists and drag queens
‘I AM BIG!’: Faye Dunaway v. Andrew Lloyd Webber
In 1994, Faye went to war with one of the most powerful figures in the theater, composer and producer Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Andrew fired Faye from the Los Angeles production of his musical adaptation of the 1950 Hollywood classic Sunset Boulevard.
By that point, the show was notorious for its turnover – Andrew had already jettisoned Patti LuPone from the Broadway run and replaced her with Glenn Close.
A furious Patti filed suit against him and used her $1 million settlement to install what she called the Andrew Lloyd Webber Memorial Pool at her country house.
That same year, Andrew fired Faye during rehearsals, announcing she was unable to sing the part and canceling the Los Angeles production entirely.
Faye retaliated by giving a press conference in her backyard, decrying her firing as ‘yet another capricious act by a capricious man.’
In front of a throng of reporters, she magisterially declared: ‘When I auditioned for Mr. Lloyd Webber, I sang in my range. He cast me in that range, only later deciding to try to push me into a higher one.’
She sneered: ‘Does he worry that his work is so fragile that it might break apart if we moved the songs outside of a range that he feels comfortable with?’
Faye sued Andrew for $6 million, accusing him of ‘inflicting injury, reputational damage and pain and suffering in the victims of his random caprices.’
The case was ultimately settled for an amount that was kept under wraps – with an insider telling the Independent she did not get all $6 million.
Faye was fired from the Los Angeles run of Andrew Lloyd’s Webber music Sunset Boulevard, the same year Patti LuPone (pictured) was sacked from the same role on Broadway
Faye retaliated by giving a press conference in her backyard, decrying her firing as ‘yet another capricious act by a capricious man’
THROWN UNDER THE BUS: Faye Dunaway v. Supergirl
The early 1980s appeared to mark something of a nadir for Faye, who featured as the villainous Selena in the 1984 mega-flop Supergirl.
Starring Helen Slater in the title role, the picture was a lavish big-budget undertaking, made in the hopes of revitalizing a flagging franchise after Superman III received a tepid response at the box office.
Instead, Supergirl was a thunderous failure, making back less than half its budget and being almost unanimously savaged by the critics.
About a decade later, Faye published her memoirs and sensationally wrote off the whole movie as having been a joke in the first place.
‘The film was really just a send-up, a spoof, and I had a lot of fun with Selena,’ she wrote, noting some ‘great moments’ with her sidekick played by Brenda Vaccaro.
‘Unfortunately, a movie’s success depends on more than a few good scenes laced through a film, and Supergirl never fulfilled the financial hopes the producers had for it,’ Faye remembered.
The early 1980s appeared to mark something of a nadir for Faye, who featured as the villainous Selena in the 1984 mega-flop Supergirl (pictured)
Starring Helen Slater in the title role, the picture was a lavish big-budget undertaking, made in the hopes of revitalizing a flagging franchise
‘A BIG, BIG LIAR’: The explosive 6am voicemail
Furious with a journalist she felt had asked her too much about the ‘negative’ parts of her life, Faye rang him up at 6:14am one day in 2008 to complain.
When he failed to pick up, Faye, left on voicemail, launched into a scathing rant that wound up on the internet and became a sensation.
‘Why can’t you be obsessed about positive things?’ she demanded, repeatedly raging over being asked about the ‘Lloyd Webber stupidity.’
She mentioned five times in just two minutes that she had worked with Marlon Brando, whom she played opposite in the 1995 film Don Juan DeMarco.
‘You can’t put in that I worked with the wonderful Marlon Brando and talk to the director of that movie, for Christ’s sake?’ she fumed.
She also had a habit of circling back to Arizona Dream, a 1993 movie she made with Yugoslav director Emir Kusturica and Johnny Depp.
Faye proclaimed that she had been ‘brilliant’ in Arizona Dream, which she described as ‘the hit of all of Europe and Cannes.’
Her most vicious bon mots, however, were reserved for her second ex-husband Terry O’Neill, who had been interviewed by the journalist.
Dismissing Terry as ‘a big, big liar,’ she slammed ‘that stupid interview with a man that I will not even waste my time discussing – and you know, who, suffice it to say, stopped working when he married me and pretended to be my manager for a very long time, so let’s not even go there. It’s very upsetting to me!’
Faye insisted: ‘I don’t want Lloyd Webber in. I’d like you to cut him out, and I’d like you to really trim down everything to do with that Mommie Dearest. I’m not gonna talk about it – maybe one thing I’m gonna say about it, and that’s all!’
In a furious voicemail to a journalist, Faye mentioned five times in two minutes that she worked with Marlon Brando, whom she is pictured with in Don Juan DeMarco in 1994
‘You can’t put in that I worked with the wonderful Marlon Brando and talk to the director of that movie, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE?’ she fumed; the two film stars are pictured in Don Juan DeMarco
‘LA LA LAND!’: The infamous Oscars moment
Faye hit the headlines for the wrong reasons all over again when she reunited with her Bonnie & Clyde co-star Warren Beatty at the 2017 Academy Awards.
The moment was dreamed up as a flourish of Tinseltown magic – two showbiz legends together again to present best picture to the rising talents of the day.
But the whole enterprise went pear-shaped when Warren opened the envelope and spent several seconds staring at the page, confused.
‘You’re impossible!’ Faye laughed, ripping the slip of paper out of his hand and confidently announcing that the best picture winner was La La Land.
The La La Land team excitedly bounded onstage and barreled into their acceptance speeches, only to then realize – mortified – that there had been an error.
Warren and Faye had accidentally been given the best actress page, which said that Emma Stone had won for La La Land.
In fact, the best picture winner was Moonlight, and the La La Land producers had to sheepishly hand over the prize to the real victors onstage.
Faye was heaped with opprobrium for announcing the wrong winner and humiliating the La La Land team in front of the world.
Two months later, she went on television and attempted to laugh off the incident, trying to apportion part of the blame to Warren.
‘He pulled the card out of the envelope and he didn’t say anything,’ she told Lester Holt on NBC Nightly News. ‘I thought he was joking.’
She added: ‘I mean, I thought he was stalling. Warren’s like that. He kind of holds the power and makes people – a dramatic pause. But it’s part of his charm.’
Lester then inquired whether she had learned to laugh about the mishap, and she chuckled while responding: ‘Not really.’
Faye hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons all over again when she reunited with her Bonnie & Clyde co-star Warren Beatty at the 2017 Academy Awards
‘You’re impossible!’ Faye laughed, ripping the slip of paper out of his hand and incorrectly announcing that the best picture winner was La La Land
STAGESTRUCK: Dunaway on Broadway
In 2019, Faye was fired from a Broadway-bound show over a string of allegations about her behavior – including that she slapped a crew member, the New York Post reported.
At the time of her dismissal, she was still in out-of-town tryouts for the one-woman show Tea For Two, in which she played Katharine Hepburn.
On July 10 during the show’s run in Boston, Faye purportedly snapped backstage while the crew attempted to help her into her wig.
She was accused of slapping and flinging items at the staff, in an outburst so severe that the evening’s performance had to be called off, according to the New York Post.
An insider claimed that crew members were ‘fearful of their safety’ from the actress, who started ‘verbally abusing’ them when that night’s show was scrapped.
The alleged July 10 debacle came after a string of other reported incidents, including Faye being offered a salad during a photo-shoot and hurling it to the floor.
It was claimed that she could be two hours late to rehearsal – and that when she eventually did show up, no one was permitted to look at her, even the director.
Faye was also said to have put a ban on white clothing at rehearsals on the grounds that it ‘distracts me,’ according to the New York Post.
After being fired, she was sued by her gay assistant Michael Rocha, who said she ‘regularly and relentlessly subjected plaintiff to abusive demeaning tirades.’
He claimed to have a recording of her calling him ‘a little homosexual boy,’ adding that on another occasion she referred to his colleagues as ‘little gay people.’
Michael went to the general counsel and general manager of the show with his concerns and presented them with the ‘little homosexual boy’ tape – only to lose his job two weeks later because Faye ‘is not comfortable with you anymore,’ he claimed.
Faye filed court documents denying the bulk of Michael’s allegations and insisting that the lawsuit be dismissed, Radar Online reported in 2022.
In 2019, Faye was fired from the Broadway-bound show Tea For Two over a string of allegations about her behavior; pictured playing in the show in Boston
MASTERCLASS: ‘You’re right in my eyeline’
Faye became a hot topic online all over again earlier this month, when a decades-old outtake surfaced online of her saying: ‘Could you leave, please? You’re right in my eyeline’
The footage was of Faye shooting an ad for her run as legendary opera singer Maria Callas in Terrence McNally’s play Masterclass
Faye became a hot topic online yet again earlier this month, when a decades-old outtake of hers surfaced online.
The footage was of Faye shooting an ad for her run as legendary opera singer Maria Callas in Terrence McNally’s play Masterclass.
She disappeared into character as the soprano, expertly delivering the play’s lines about the joys of finding ‘an emotional connection’ with the audience.
But just a few seconds later, she stopped the take in order to snap at someone off-camera: ‘Could you leave, please? You’re right in my eyeline.’
The drama of the moment, combined with Faye’s longtime image as a galloping diva, made the footage irresistible to online jokesters.
Then the clip reached an even wider audience when it was hilariously parodied by guest-host Maya Rudolph on Saturday Night Live.
Maya, who shot to fame on the late-night sketch show before embarking on a career in the movies, played an unidentified Hollywood ‘legend’ called Dawn Farraway.
Elderly, blonde and imperious, the showbiz icon who ‘made directors cry’ sweeps onto the set of a coffee commercial and flounces around dramatically while ruining take after take by farting uncontrollably.
