Faye Dunaway

On a recent afternoon, Faye Dunaway found herself back at the Chateau Marmont. It was a setting that summoned her '70s marriage to singer Peter Wolf of the J. Geils Band, and the former rock-'n'-roll playground made her think, she said, of a "hip, slick, cool, black-jeans kind of Hollywood musical existence." But Dunaway, looking pretty as ever and dressed classically in black slacks, a beige silk blouse and a lavender jacket, wasn't at the Chateau to reminisce.

Another day, another series in which ambitious young people compete on camera for a hot job. "The Starlet," which premieres Sunday on the WB, is "American Idol" for actresses, though with the dormitory setup of "The Apprentice," etc. It's also a hard-working piece of Warner cross-promotion, up to and including the mention of "Bonnie and Clyde" (Warner Bros., 1967) in the introduction of judge Faye Dunaway.

Faye Dunaway has a reputation for being difficult, but she should take comfort in the fact that nobody's ever gone down in history for being easy to work with. And Dunaway has surely secured a place for herself in America's cultural history.

Slender, striking and formidable, with dark hair swept dramatically back, Faye Dunaway enters. There's no question--she has "a look." That's what Maria Callas insists every singer must get in Terrence McNally's "Master Class," his love letter to the great diva of opera and of real-life rejection. Playing Callas, Dunaway narrows her long eyes and tells her mortified pupils: "You don't have a look. Get one." Dunaway herself not only has a look, she also has the film rights.

Hollywood lore has it that Warren Beatty would do anything to get "Bonnie and Clyde" made. But did the young movie star really crawl on his hands and knees across the floor of Warner Bros. mogul Benny Kalmenson's office, begging him for the money to make the film? "That's exactly what happened," recalls Dick Lederer, then the studio's head of advertising and publicity. "Trust me, it's not something you could make up. I was there to see it."

Joe Morgenstern has vivid memories of the first time he saw "Bonnie and Clyde." It was the week before the movie's August 1967 opening in New York. Then in his second year as a film critic at Newsweek, he'd gone to the Warner Bros. Fifth Avenue offices to see the film. He still remembers who sat next to him during the screening: Warren Beatty. "I don't know if it made me nervous or not," recalls Morgenstern, now the film critic at the Wall Street Journal.

I just finished Devra Ma-za's article on first kisses ("Ode to a First Kiss," Feb. 12). It was really cute, but she missed one of the best and probably one of the longest first kisses ever to make film history. That one was from the 1968 movie "The Thomas Crown Affair" with Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway. If you can find it on video, you owe it to yourself to see this first kiss. It's fabulous. Which goes to show you that you don't always need the nudity and raw technique in filming to make a film sexy beyond belief.

Faye Dunaway has been offered the role of Norma Desmond in "Sunset Boulevard" at the Shubert Theatre, a spokesman for producer/composer Andrew Lloyd Webber said Thursday. If negotiations are completed as planned, Dunaway will replace Glenn Close in the hit musical after June 26, when Close is scheduled to leave in order to begin rehearsals for the role in New York. Not known for her singing, Dunaway reportedly had intensively prepared for her audition, which Lloyd Webber conducted this week.

Faye Dunaway was doing a lot of singing Friday, but not much talking. Shortly after she was offered the role of Norma Desmond for the Los Angeles production of "Sunset Boulevard" on Thursday, her manager Bob Palmer talked to the Associated Press and Dunaway called Variety columnist Army Archerd. Peter Brown, spokesman for producer-composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, expressed anger that the news had been released before contract negotiations were completed.

For Norma Desmond, aging silent screen star in "Sunset Boulevard," the advent of talking pictures spelled the end of her career. Faye Dunaway saw Hollywood unofficially relieve her of her movie-star crown in the 1980s as she entered her 40s; looking back, she said she sometimes feared her own career might take Norma Desmond's downward spiral.