""Real movie stars bring to the screen a presence that's
overwhelming. Faye is the last of that breed."" That assessment, by
one of her closest friends, is perhaps the clue to understanding
the distinctive quality that has made Faye Dunaway such a great and
enduring star -- for in an era of intimacy and accessibility, she
has remained aloof, a figure of mystery, larger than life. In
"Looking for Gatsby" -- a title which perfectly conveys the
haunting pursuit of romance that has always been a part of her life
-- Faye Dunaway has written a truly remarkable book. As she probes
relentlessly for the truth about herself, she fearlessly confronts
her demons, trying to set the record straight about her life, her
loves, her work, searching for the events that shaped her, that
gave her the drive -- and the blazing need -- to escape from a
childhood of poverty and turmoil and to succeed so completely as an
actress.
Faye Dunaway writes about her earliest years with fierce pride
and a total lack of self-pity, whether about the strong women who
shaped her character (her mother and her maternal grandmother), or
her father who was never really a father to her (one manifestation
of the "Gatsby" for which she has always searched). Acting was not
just a way out -- it was a passion, the one thing she knew she had
to do. She captures brilliantly her hard times in pursuit of that
career, attending college on a patchwork of scholarships, as well
as working at a variety of jobs to support herself, studying her
profession with a painstaking thoroughness and an eye for detail
that was to make her legendary, developing that inner sense of the
person and the story that later enabled her to portray
larger-than-life characters so convincingly.
Faye Dunaway confronts her reputation for being "difficult"
(including struggles with such directors as Otto Preminger and
Roman Polanski) and makes us understand not only the fact that she
takes her profession seriously, but the way in which perfectionism
in Hollywood is usually taken as praiseworthy in men and, unfairly,
condemned in women -- even stars.
When she began her acting career, it was in the New York
theater. Success came almost immediately, in "Hogan's Goat, " and
fame soon after that, when in only her third film she was cast
opposite Warren Beatty in "Bonnie and Clyde." Her talent and her
enigmatic beauty made her a major international star almost
overnight and gave her at last the life she had only dreamed about
as a child. But as Faye so openly admits, reality has a way of
mocking dreams, and while success and fame came easily, happiness
has proven much more elusive. She writes candidly of the men in her
life -- costars, lovers, husbands -- and of the problems of
competing needs and constant professional demands that frequently
destroy relationships in the world of movie stardom. There have
been affairs, of course, some of which have been public knowledge,
others discussed here for the first time, among them legendary
comedian and satirist Lenny Bruce (about whom she writes movingly)
and Italian superstar Marcello Mastroianni (with whom she had a
long, stormy affair). She writes intimately of two of her
marriages, her first to rock icon Peter Wolf, lead singer of the J.
Geils Band, and later to renowned photographer Terry O'Neill, with
whom she saw her greatest triumph, their son Liam.
Her career has been scarcely less tempestuous, however
brilliant. She has appeared in such major successes as "Bonnie and
Clyde, Chinatown, The Thomas Crown Affair, Mommie Dearest" and
"Network" (for which she won an Academy Award as Best Actress) and
experienced great disappointments, such as the failure of her 1993
television series.
With a candor remarkable in so private a star, she takes the
reader behind the scenes of her own working life as an actress,
including her relationships with -- and professional opinions of --
such actors as Jack Nicholson, Marlon Brando, Robert Redford, Steve
McQueen and Warren Beatty, as well as her feud with Bette
Davis.
Moving, witty, fiercely honest, unsparing of herself, Faye
Dunaway's "Looking for Gatsby" is an extraordinary book, as smart,
clear-sighted and full of passion as the woman who wrote it.
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