Happy belated birthday to Faye Dunaway, an actress so powerful and commanding, I sometimes find myself thinking about her work on accident. I'm serious. Some days when I'm tired and in need of a jolt, my brain reroutes to Dunaway and her vulpine stare in, say, the chess scene from The Thomas Crown Affair (and Madonna's tribute to that scene in her "Power of Goodbye" video), her glamorous austerity in The Voyage of the Damned (God, can you believe there's a movie that costarred Dunaway and Lee Grant? Ferocious overload!), or one of her tenderer moments in Barfly. Hell, I think about when she scared the dickens out of Cristina Yang on Grey's Anatomy. She is fearsome and unmistakable, and in honor of the legendary, arguably notorious actress' birthday, here are my five favorite films of hers.
5. Three Days of the Condor
1975 was a magical time when Robert Redford and Martina Navratilova had the same haircut. It also gave us one of Redford's most engrossing capers, the slick Three Days of the Condor, and a fine, cool performance from Dunaway, who finds herself providing shelter to the fugitive Condor (Redford). Her steeliness gives way to very memorable vulnerability, which nicely offsets the movie's whizzbang action.
4. Bonnie and Clyde
It's the movie that gave you Warren Beatty's most wicked sneer, Estelle Parsons' most insane screech, Gene Wilder's debut, and the stone cold grit and cheekbones of Faye Dunaway. Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael hailed the picture as revelatory, and Dunaway's stylish and flitty performance remains its most valuable asset. You have to love that knowing stare she flashes at Clyde mere seconds before authorities shoot 'em up.
3. Chinatown
Evelyn Mulwray (Dunaway) is the perfect portrait of intrigue in Roman Polanski's Chinatown, a movie that's rightfully heralded for reigniting the noir mystery and illustrating the fabulously sinister qualities of Los Angeles. Though Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is the sleuth who runs the show, it's Dunaway who's iconic. She's so cool and indecipherable, it's like she could be your sister and your mother.
2. Mommie Dearest
Is it camp? Perhaps the clearest example thereof. Is it loony? Arguably the looniest. But don't you dare deny for a split second that Faye Dunaway brought something to the silver screen in Mommie Dearest that we'd never seen before: a determinedly unhinged portrayal of an icon that never relents, apologizes, stutters, or winks. It is an eye-popping kabuki explosion, and we are all the richer for it.
1. Network
Network was prophetic about plenty of things, but its unfulfilled promise of a future filled with EXTREMELY BEIGE EVERYTHING left me disappointed. Sigh. Guess I'll have to settle for loving the hell out of Dunaway as ruthless TV exec Diana Christensen, a woman who is warm enough to deadpan, "I'm a racist lackey of the imperialist ruling circles." She wants to make must-see TV, and by God, she does it -- through the sheer command of her humorless voice and the determination of a soulless militia. Dunaway is perfect, and she certainly earned the '76 Best Actress Oscar for her efforts. Fire.
What's your favorite Dunaway role?
