Hollywood made Dunaway pay for her independence

With new documentary ‘Faye’ set to premiere in Cannes, Geoffrey Macnab tells the cautionary tale of how the strong, chic ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ star ended up acting in B-movies

- Geoffrey Macnab

It’s been nearly six decades since Faye Dunaway starred in Arthur Penn’s 1967 caper Bonnie and Clyde, but her small-town waitress still stands among the most glamorous gangsters in movie history. With her blonde hair, red lipstick, and unmistakable air of mischief, you knew she was trouble.

Dunaway’s Bonnie Parker, who teamed up with Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) to go on a crime spree in the film, was a Depression-era bank robber and yet, with her high cheekbones and piercing eyes, she had effortless poise. No one else could wear a beret and smoke a cigar quite like her. She even made dying in a hail of machine gun bullets look chic, like a piece of slow-motion, avant-garde performance art. This was her third feature and it turned her into an international star.

The newcomer was as distinctive on camera as any old Hollywood legend like Garbo or Joan Crawford (whom she was later to play), and yet she was thoroughly modern too, looking as if she had just stepped out of some French New Wave movie shot on the Left Bank. She and Beatty complemented each other perfectly. “They’re young; they’re in love: and they kill people!” read the advertising slogan for the film that, after a bumpy arrival in American cinemas, became a huge hit.

It was no surprise that the Florida-born actor went on to win multiple awards and appear alongside the biggest names of her era. During the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, she was at the very top of the A-list, working with, and often eclipsing, actors like Beatty, Steve McQueen, Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Marcello Mastroianni, Kirk Douglas, Jack Nicholson, Michael Caine and William Holden.