Faye Dunaway, Before and After

By | January 11, 2024

Faye Dunaway, an icon of American cinema at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, is remembered for her starring role in the crime film “Bonnie and Clyde”, as well as her vivid performance as investigator Vicki Anderson from the film “The Thomas Crown Affair”.

Plastic surgery

Judging by the photos, Faye Dunaway has undergone many cosmetic procedures. Faye’s face looks unnatural. The skin on her forehead and cheeks is too smooth for her age. The shape of the lips and cheekbones looks a little different than in the photo in her youth.

Aesthetic surgery specialists say that, apart from a facelift in combination with botox injections and fillers, there are no other effective methods for solving problems with wrinkles and sagging skin. In addition, experts suggest that an operation was performed on the eyelids.

Comparing the photos of Faye Dunaway before and after numerous procedures, we can say that she has become another victim of plastic surgery. As the press and fans of the Oscar-winning Hollywood actress wrote, everything she did to herself, namely a contoured facelift, an overdose of botox, injections of fillers, blepharoplasty (eyelid lift) and breast augmentation, all this became a real disaster for Faye. Dunaway did not try to hide it, she is sure that everything is fine with her appearance.

It is rumored that the actress became addicted to cosmetic surgery due to an unsuccessful personal life. Let’s remember how her fate turned out.

Then and now

Insane passion on set, depression and the dream of a child: all about the personal life of the legendary actress of the 1970s Faye Dunaway.

She went from the Broadway stage to the heights of Hollywood success and back, becoming one of the brightest actresses in American cinema. And her most famous role is Bonnie Parker, from the legendary, even cult criminal duo Bonnie and Clyde, which became the main female symbol of the rebellious 1960s.

Faye Dunaway has not the usual glossy beauty of classic Hollywood. Her beauty is active and dangerous, unpredictable, mixed up in protest and thirst for freedom. In relationships with men, the Oscar—winning actress was the same – on the one hand, meek and dreaming of calmly raising children, but the very next moment Faye could become obstinate and rebellious. Such mood swings have cost her more than one romance. What kind of men have left their mark on Dunaway’s fate will be discussed further.

John McDowell Dunaway

Faye Dunaway was born on January 14, 1941 in the small provincial town of Bascom in Florida. Her father John was a career military officer (non-commissioned officer), so the future actress spent most of her childhood traveling. Subsequently, Faye admitted that this experience of constant wandering from one military base to another had a noticeable effect on her and helped her better play one of the main roles in her film career.

“I’ve always felt like a child without roots, a person from nowhere. This is probably what I have in common with Bonnie Parker. Like her, I lived in a rather closed, meager world, dying to break out of my usual environment and go conquer the world. These feelings and experiences were part of my growing up,” Dunaway said later in an interview.

She decided to conquer the world through art. As a child, Faye was engaged in dancing, learned to play the piano and sing. But she would never be able to forget how her mother humiliatingly persuaded her father to give her money for her daughter’s education. Since then, Dunaway has decided that she will never depend on any man financially.

Faye has always been proud and ambitious precisely because she came from a poor family. She simply could not have imagined that she would work as a saleswoman in a department store for the rest of her life. Dunaway understood that she had to succeed at all costs.

After graduating from high school, the girl enrolled in the Boston School of the Arts in the acting department. At this time, she had to rely only on herself, her own strength and abilities. She studied and worked as a waitress in the evenings. Her family did not help her, and she would never have allowed herself to turn to them for help. On the contrary, as best she could, she cut out small amounts from her earnings and sent them home.

After overcoming all the difficulties, Faye got a job at the American National Theater, where her acting career began. In 1962, she made her Broadway debut in a play. Five years later, producer Sam Segal saw a talented girl and offered her a job in a movie. In 1967, Dunaway made her film debut. In the same year, she appeared in two more films, one of which made her a celebrity. We are talking about the gangster thriller “Bonnie and Clyde”, which tells a romantic story about a famous pair of robbers during the Great Depression.

Warren Beatty

Faye has always had a strict rule: her work is incompatible with novels. She took her work extremely seriously and believed that love for a colleague would become an obstacle, and therefore there could be no question of any feelings on the set.

After “Bonnie and Clyde,” journalists began vying to write that there was a close relationship between Faye and her partner Warren Beatty. However, it was just their desire to attract the attention of the public.

The truth was, Dunaway had never even thought about looking at Warren seriously. She respected him as an actor of the highest class, and he was a wonderful friend, but only because Faye knew how much Warren loved women. He is incomparable and charming, but with him she will not find the stability she dreamed of. And how can a young and handsome Warren resist temptation when he is literally followed by strings of female fans, giving no rest day or night? Faye immediately decided: She won’t take a place in the general line.

Marcello Mastroianni

But the Italian Marcello Mastroianni was completely different. With him, she forgot about her rules. Dunaway first saw Mastroianni in 1968. Director Vittorio de Sica invited the American actress to shoot the film, where her partner was the inimitable Marcello. Mastroianni was married, but couldn’t resist the charms of America’s most beautiful woman. Faye Dunaway was recognized as such after the movie “Bonnie and Clyde”. The actors’ relationship developed so rapidly that by the end of filming, the entire film crew already knew about their affair. It is said that when the love scenes of the film were filmed, De Sica could not stretch the kissing couple — the stars were so infatuated with each other.

After filming, Dunaway was forced to return to America, where she was waiting to work on other films. However, she did not forget about her lover. As soon as she managed to get a little free from her busy work schedule, the actress took a plane ticket and flew to Italy to Marcello. But she was upset by the fact that with Mastroianni, she felt like a spy. Marcello could only bring Faye to the homes of his most devoted friends, Vittorio Gassman and Federico Fellini, who would not give him away to journalists. Recall that Mastroianni was then married to the Italian Flora Carabella. Naturally, after a while, Faye wanted certainty. One day, when she and Mastroianni were staying at a hotel in the suburbs of Florence, the girl said:

“Marcello, I can’t live like this anymore. I need complete clarity and certainty in the relationship. I need to know exactly when you intend to file for divorce.”

Marcello was disappointed. He talked to her about happiness, and she talked about divorce. And he wasn’t the only one who didn’t understand Faye. His friends were in complete solidarity with him. Federico Fellini told the actress:

“What’s wrong with Marcello? Why do you have to be his wife? Do you feel good around him? He carries you in his arms, gives you expensive gifts, he fulfills your slightest wish, and you want the impossible!”

Faye was unaware that in Italy there are different views on marriage than in America. Husbands can have many mistresses, and spouses are calm about the hobbies of their faithful. But Faye was built differently. Her patience broke down in 1969, on Christmas Day, when she decided to break up with Marcello.

Peter Wolfe

Faye has changed a lot after breaking up with the Italian actor. She became arrogant, as if she was angry at all men at once, and she got into the habit of lecturing others. What was the cost of her run-ins with director Roman Polanski during the filming of the film in 1974. Hell raged on the set, and it was only thanks to Jack Nicholson, who showed incredible diplomatic skills, that work on the film was successfully completed.

Faye loved her job more than anything in the world, but she dreamed of having a child. By the time she broke up with Marcello Mastroianni, she was already 32 years old. The actress lost hope of finding a decent man, but suddenly a new love came. His name was Peter Wolfe, he was the guitarist of the rock band Geils Band. At first they went to concerts together, and after the performances they had fun in full. This was completely atypical for a normally reasonable “righteous woman” (as Roman Polanski called the actress). But when Faye woke up one day in the arms of not Peter, but his friend and did not remember anything about the events of that night, she realized that this was not the life she had dreamed of.

The actress decided: that’s enough, no more experiments. She wanted to live peacefully with a normal husband, have a family and a child. Peter took Faye’s statement calmly. “If that’s what you want…” he said, and that evening he gave his girlfriend a diamond ring. They got married in the summer of 1974.

However, Wolfe was in no hurry to get an heir, and Dunaway was constantly thinking about the child. The musician answered all his wife’s requests with silence or joked. The actress recalled how her mother once told her:

“If a man does not want a child from a woman, it means that he does not love her and is not going to stay with her any longer.”

As a result, Faye gave Peter an ultimatum: either there will be a child in the family, or let the spouse pack his things. Peter stated that he preferred to pack up and leave, but at the same time offered Faye to remain not only friends, but also lovers. Of course, the proud woman flatly refused.

Terry O’Neill

Faye herself could not have imagined that she would go through the breakup with Peter so hard. She cried for days on end, took handfuls of sedatives, but the pills didn’t help her either. She developed claustrophobia, fear of death, and hallucinations. Friends tried to help Faye, distraught with grief. Robert Redford, Jack Nicholson, and Sidney Lumette were with her all the time. Scripts were offered to her in such numbers as never before. But now it seemed to her that even her favorite job would not be able to comfort her.

A couple of years later, the famous London photographer Terry O’Neill invited Faye Dunaway to star in a photo shoot for People magazine. Filming took place on the banks of the Hudson River in New York on a windy day. After that, Faye caught a bad cold. While she was ill, Terry did not leave her side, taking care of her like a child. It seemed to Faye that Terry bore a striking resemblance to her father, whom, despite many problems, she loved madly. The actress decided: There’s no way she’s letting the photographer out of her life. For her sake, O’Neill had to leave his family in London: his wife and two children. Did Faye have any remorse about this? No, not at all. She suffered so much that she wanted happiness with all her being, and, as it seemed to her, she had the right to do so.

Terry and Faye soon got married, and in 1980 their long-awaited son Liam was born in their family. The couple moved to London, where Faye bought a luxurious mansion in the city center. She practically stopped acting and began to devote all her free time to her family. But was Faye happy?

For several years, as soon as Terry crossed the threshold of the house, he was bombarded with a barrage of reproaches or complaints. It seemed like he was doing everything wrong. It was as if Faye wanted to take revenge on her innocent husband for all the evil that other men had done to her. She couldn’t bring herself to believe him. Terry O’Neal was perfect, but she was afraid that he would treat her the same way as her ex-men. In the end, Faye took the child and, leaving her husband, flew to America.

In recent years, Dunaway has hardly acted in films. According to the tabloids, today the actress lives in one of the poor neighborhoods of Los Angeles. At the same time, she often appears at events, despite her greatly changed appearance due to unsuccessful plastic surgery. About men, she now speaks like this:

“Love is very important, but it cannot be the only meaning of life. My son comes first, work comes second, and finding a man comes third.”

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