Faye Dunaway is an Academy Award-winning American actor who has won an Oscar for her role in Sydney Lumet’s 1976 film, Network. Dunaway started out professionally on Broadway theatre stages and after a while, set off to Hollywood in pursuit of a big screen career. She became a household name with her third feature film, Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967) that was a box office smash hit and went on to become one of the most defining films of late 1960s US film. In the film, Dunaway played bank robber, Bonnie Parker, in a performance that earned her an Oscar nomination.
On the heels of Bonnie and Clyde’s massive success, Dunaway quickly became one of the most sought-after actors in international film. In her roles, she was most commonly cast as the archetypical ‘new woman’ – strong, profound, and complex. Dunaway has appeared in some of American cinema’s most important films of the time, including The Thomas Crown Affair (Norman Jewison, 1968), Little Big Man (Arthur Penn, 1970), The Towering Inferno (John Guillermin, 1974), Three Days of the Condor (Sydney Pollack, 1975), and Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974) for which Dunaway earned an Oscar nomination.
Dunaway has won scores of awards throughout her career for her various TV and film roles. On top of her Oscar, Dunaway is a three-time Golden Globe winner – for her performances in Network (Sidney Lumet, 1976), the miniseries Ellis Island (Jerry London, 1984), and the made-for-TV film, Gia (Michael Cristofer, 1998). She also took home an Emmy for her guest starring role in the classic TV series, Columbo. However, following the box office disaster that was Mommie Dearest (Frank Perry, 1981) in which Dunaway took on the role of legendary actress, Joan Crawford, her career took a massive hit. Despite continuing to appear regularly in a variety of films, she was no longer being offered roles of the same calibre that had been so synonymous with her in previous decades.
Notably, Dunaway appeared in US-Israeli director, Amos Kollek’s 1992 film, Double Edge. Highlights of her other screen credits include The Three Musketeers (Richard Lester, 1973), Voyage of the Damned (Stuart Rosenberg, 1976), Eyes of Laura Mars (Irvin Kershner, 1978), The Champ (Franco Zeffirelli, 1979), Supergirl (Jeannot Szwarc, 1984), Arizona Dream (Emir Kusturica, 1993), Don Juan DeMarco (Jeremy Leven, 1995), and The Rules of Attraction (Roger Avary, 2002).
