one million dollars, faye dunaway

Most people who know me know of my great love of Bette Davis – my nom de plume for Yeeeaaah Hot even honors her immense greatness. Coincidentally, I watched Whatever Happened to Baby Jane last night on TCM, for probably the 50th time. This is a great clip that I came across of Bette Davis on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in the late 1980s.

At the start of the clip, she is discussing the great silent film star Lillian Gish, with whom she had recently finished filming ‘The Whales of August’ – but then the subject of Faye Dunaway comes up...

Johnny – So who’s one of the worst people you know in Hollywood?

Bette – That I worked with?

Johnny – That you wouldn’t want to work with again…

Bette – One million dollars, Faye Dunaway! Everybody you can put into this chair will tell you exactly the same thing.

Johnny – What is it about Miss Dunaway that makes her…

Bette – Well she’s just totally impossible.

Johnny – Really?

Bette – Yes. I don’t think we have the time to go into all the reasons.

She then recalls a personal anecdote of when she worked with Dunaway, and how difficult she had been – talking about being ‘unprofessional’ and keeping the cast and crew waiting etc.

Johnny – Well you are a true professional.

Bette – Yes. That is really what she isn’t.

How great is Bette Davis – and don’t you wish that actors and actresses these days would actually be truthful. Wouldn’t you just love to see Renée Zellwegger on Oprah, dissing Reese Witherspoon? Sign me up!

Seriously though, Faye Dunaway really must be a gem – and seeing as how she played the role of Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest, you’d think that Bette Davis would have signed herself up as President of the Dunaway fan club. Oh, and while we’re still on the Dunaway topic, there are a couple of things on which I would like to touch - her new face, and the now legendary voicemails.

I put together a side-by-side of a few photos of Miss Dunaway, and am really having difficulty wrapping my brain around the fact that this is the same woman. Is this shit for real? What a chameleon she is, eh!?!

And in case any of you missed the Faye Dunaway voicemails from a few months ago, I’ve tracked down the audio file for your enjoyment. For anyone who doesn’t know what I’m talking about, Dunaway left a series of fantastic voicemails for one of the producers working on a biography special about her career.

She was apparently upset with the direction that the show was taking… too much emphasis on Mommie Dearest and the ‘Lloyd Webber stupidity’. To backtrack even further, Andrew Lloyd Webber fired Dunaway from the Los Angeles production of the musical Sunset Boulevard and replaced her with Glenn Close back in 1994 because her singing was not up to par. In response, she sued him for millions of dollars – and of course, lost.

Ok – listen and enjoy – I implore you!