Rutanya Alda on Faye Dunaway's behavior during Mommie Dearest filming

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 1/29/14 at 6:42pm

Day. Made.

"You can put this on record: Faye made life very difficult. [Costume designer] Irene Sharaff, who had come out of retirement to do it, said, ‘That woman is on cocaine!’ She walked off the film midway and said, ‘I’m going back to New York and not returning, because of Faye. I have never walked off a movie in my entire career… You can enter Faye Dunaway’s dressing room, but first throw a raw steak in there to distract her.’ I never saw any drug use, but I saw the erratic behavior and mood swings, which happen for a reason.”

Rutanya talks Faye at the Castro:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k-VnMuaHglg
queerty link

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 1/29/14 at 7:12pm

In the opening, when she's walking down the aisle, she stops and hugs a handsome, bearded guy...

I was friends with that star fcuker for a while until I realized what he was all about. He physically shoved me aside to get Anna Gastyers autograph at a show once.






Carol Ann Speaks Her Peace

Updated On: 1/29/14 at 07:12 PM

[bobs3]

Posted: 1/29/14 at 7:22pm

I heard a story about Ms. Dunaway about 15 years ago. Don't know if it is true or exaggerated but she was at a Koo Koo Roo in Los Angeles and ordered a chicken breast with a side. Well at Koo Koo Roo they give you a complimentary piece of lavash bread with your order. She told the order taker that she was on a carb free diet and wanted another side instead of the lavash. The cashier told her she would have to pay for another side. She demanded to speak to the manager who told her if she wanted another side she would have to pay for it. She directed a foul-mouthed rant toward the manager. I am told that people were calling their friends and holding up their cell phones like boom mikes in order to capture Faye's foul mouthed rant.

Updated On: 1/29/14 at 07:22 PM

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 1/29/14 at 7:32pm

Considering there's no video that has ever been seen of the incident, I think it's just another story.

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 1/29/14 at 9:03pm

"My thinking on this picture," he said, "is that we are selling glamour, fantasy and tragedy. We have these sets, we have Faye Dunaway in 57 costume changes by Irene Sharaff, we show one of the greatest Hollywood stars over a period of 38 years. This is a $9.4 million picture, and the money is in the costumes and the sets.

"Frankly, what I'm after is a Photo­play image. I want to give the audience what they perceive to be the scale of Joan's life. That's more important than the reality. Audiences imagine that stars live in rooms the size of movie sets, of movie ballrooms. Nobody lives like that anymore. But that was the Crawford image, in a cross between Art Moderne and Art Deco, with ev­erything compulsively perfect.”

Roger Ebert visits Mommie Dearest set

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 1/30/14 at 8:50pm

Considering there's no video that has ever been seen of the incident, I think it's just another story.

Not to mention that Dunaway last did MASTER CLASS in LA in 1997. Camera cell phones were not nearly so common back then.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 1/30/14 at 8:57pm

One of my best friends was the publicist for MASTER CLASS and hated her so much he wanted me to come to opening night in my MOMMIE DEAREST costume, just to piss her off.

Another friend lived near her and called her DAY FUNAWAY, "because if you ever spent a day with her, the fun would go away". When he was showing me her newest house, near him. As we were standing out front, a very well manicured hand snatched the drapes and yanked them shut.

And, my final story is, ANOTHER friend used to work at Video West in West Hollywood, said she came in and pulled the tape for MOMMIE DEAREST from the shelf, read the cover and then threw her head back and laughed. She put the tape back and left the store.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/30/14 at 10:14pm

A queen who ran a P'town guest house we stayed at referred to her as Dun Fadeaway, cuz that's what she did after Mommie Dearest.

It also made the papers in Boston when she was doing Master Class that she went on a screaming match in a Beacon Hill grocery store (where I was a cashier for six of the worst weeks of my life in the mid-'80s) because they didn't have *kosher* hot dogs.

[HorseTears]

Posted: 1/31/14 at 2:47am

It seems every gay man north of 40 has at least one "my friend said..." stories about Faye Dunaway.



(got anymore?)

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 1/31/14 at 3:00am

"A queen who ran a P'town guest house we stayed at referred to her as Dun Fadeaway, cuz that's what she did after Mommie Dearest."

That's what Steve McQueen called her as well.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 2/1/14 at 8:10pm

Well, "my friend" played the piano player during both of her tours. He made her sound like a strong personality, but hardly a monster. And certainly no worse certainly no worse than Yul Brynner, Lauren Bacall, Zero Mostel and others with whom I have worked.

Another friend took a job as her personal assistant. He lasted a week.

So I guess it depends...

ETA I can't take any pleasure in the decline of her career. She really was one of our greatest film actresses and who knows what she might be doing now?

Updated On: 2/1/14 at 08:10 PM

Posted: 2/2/14 at 7:42pm

One of the video stores I oversaw reported she would "Hide" the rental copies of Mommie Dearest whenever she came in.