When Faye Dunaway took on the role of real-life bank robber Bonnie Parker in the 1967 crime caper , she reached a level of stardom that most young actresses only dream of. The 26-year-old had only been starring in movies for a few months, but along with critical acclaim came an Academy Award nomination and top-billing with some of the era's biggest names such as Kirk Douglas, Dustin Hoffman and Steve McQueen. But just a decade later, the roles were drying up.
Rumors of "difficult" and "diva" behavior dogged Dunaway, along with stories of behind-the-scenes feuds with fellow industry heavyweights, such as Bette Davis and director Andrew Lloyd Webber. Now 83 years old, Dunaway's swift rise to stardom and career downfall are being re-examined in , the documentary that aired at the Cannes Film Festival in May. "Since the 1950s, successful women have been disproportionately targeted by the media," film scholar J.
E Smyth told . "When the woman is a Hollywood star, she has a target on her face 24 hours a day." According to Smyth, Dunaway was "a reincarnation of the old school Hollywood stars of the 1930s and 1940s, who were independent women on and off screen.
" This persona initially made her a star, but later, played a part in destroying her career. "She was fierce, she was independent, she was intelligent and loved looking great for herself—not for men," Smyth said. "Perhaps because of this, even more than her mental health struggles, she was doomed to fail in late 20th-century H.
