We’ve heard stuff about Faye Dunaway’s eccentricities and we’ve heard about some of her behavior which would be considered “diva-ish.” Personally, I’ll never forget how little Faye cared about the 2016 Oscar Best Picture controversy which she was a part of – she called the wrong movie name and then waltzed around the afterparties without a care in the world, while Warren Beatty was the one trying to fix everything (granted, it was not his fault or her fault). But this story is really something else… apparently Faye Dunaway has been fired from a Broadway-bound play, Tea at Five, which was supposed to be in previews at the Huntington Theater in Boston. Some highlights from this NY Post story:
The July 10 performance for Tea at Five was canceled moments before curtain because Dunaway slapped and threw things at crew members who were trying to put on her wig, sources say. Enraged at the cancellation, Dunaway began “verbally abusing” the crew. They were “fearful for their safety,” said one source.
The producers of “Tea at Five” said in a statement they had “terminated their relationship” with the actress. They said the play, which was well received in Boston, would go to London in the spring and be recast with another actress. “Tea at Five,” a one-woman play by Matthew Lombardo about Hepburn’s recovery from a car accident in 1983, was meant to be a triumphant return to the stage for Dunaway, who famously was fired by Andrew Lloyd Webber before she opened in the Los Angeles production of “Sunset Boulevard.”
“She seemed committed to the role, and fun to be around,” said a source. But her behavior was unsettling at an early photo shoot. Someone gave her a salad for lunch and she threw it on the floor. She was watching her weight and said the salad would be better on the floor than in her hand. She was frequently late for rehearsals, sometimes up to two hours, sources say. She refused to allow anyone to look at her during rehearsals, including the director and the playwright. Although she had the script for six months, sources claim she was never able to learn her lines. During the run of the play at Huntington she was fed lines and blocking through an earpiece. One source says, “98 percent of the play came through the earpiece.”
While in rehearsal she left what one production source called “troubling, rambling, angry” voicemails to the creative team during the middle of the night. She also insisted that no one wear white to rehearsals because it “distracts me,” she said. When she was rehearsing on stage at the Huntington no one was allowed to move in the theater because that also distracted her.
As she was rehearsing, she began to lose weight. She looked so emaciated that a production member called Dunaway’s former assistant for advice. The assistant said, “It sounds like she’s not complying with her medication.” The producers were so concerned about her condition they called Actors’ Equity Association to see if it was “ethical” to put someone in her state in front of an audience, sources say.
Over the last weekend of June she had a full on “Mommie Dearest” meltdown and demanded that staffers at the Huntington Theater get down on their hands and knees and scrub the floor of her dressing room, sources claim. She allegedly threw mirrors, combs and boxes of hairpins at the staff of the theater. She also pulled gray hairs out of her wig because she wanted to play a younger version of Hepburn than the playwright had written.
I’ve been in work environments where I felt emotionally abused and I’ve worked for and with people I hated, but I’ve never experienced anything like what Faye Dunaway was doing to those staffers. My God. The first time a salad was thrown or a mirror was broken, I would have been out of there. Life’s too short. But then on top of that, she was actually physically assaulting people and then verbally abusing them? Nope. Nope nope nope. Also: no one could wear white? So random.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
