Faye Dunaway was born on a farm in Bascom, Florida in 1941, the daughter of Grace April (Smith), a housewife, and John MacDowell Dunaway, Jr., an army officer. After high school she majored in education at the University of Florida, but switched to theatre arts and transferred to Boston University, earning her degree in 1962. She joined the American National Theatre and Academy and did four plays on Broadway over the next three years. Her first screen appearance was on the short-lived TV series Seaway (1965) in 1965. Two years later, she skyrocketed to fame as Bonnie Parker in Bonnie et Clyde (1967) with Warren Beatty and earned her first Academy Award nomination. From then on she was in demand everywhere, starring opposite Steve McQueen in L'affaire Thomas Crown (1968), Dustin Hoffman in Little Big Man (1970), Jack Nicholson in Chinatown (1974), and Robert Redford in Les 3 jours du condor (1975). She was Oscar-nominated again for "Chinatown" and took home the award in 1977 for her part as Diana Christensen in Network - Main basse sur la TV (1976). She followed that up with the title role in Les yeux de Laura Mars (1978), another triumph. Playing Joan Crawford in Maman très chère (1981) marked her next chapter as a top tier actress, a performance that astonished her fans but caused controversy due to her unflattering portrayal of the subject. In the early 1980s she moved to England with second husband Terry O'Neill and scaled back her career to concentrate on marriage and motherhood, appearing mainly in noncommercial films apart from the campy Supergirl (1984). Returning to the states, she made a comeback in 1987 when she co-starred with Mickey Rourke in Barfly (1987), one of the highlights of her later career. Notable performances have since included Arizona Dream (1992) with Johnny Depp, Don Juan DeMarco (1994) with Marlon Brando, and Femme de rêve (1998) with Angelina Jolie. She continues to act, and grace the screen and stage.
