Miss Dunaway vs. Jane Fonda

Love them both - almost equally. They seemed to have shared a fair amount of respect and admiration for each other - whether competing for the same roles or not. Fonda had the greater fame I suppose but there was also an element of nepotism at work there.

Jane Fonda told the director of Klute to hire Faye Dunaway (presumably because she was to play a prostitute)!

Both were almost flawlessly gorgeous in their youth (and early fame). Talk about the full package - both extremely talented and great looking.

I never thought Fonda was, R3. She has a horsy look even in youth.

Faye is Sad.

Jane is Cunty

In portraying a character, Fonda could convey warmth and vulnerability. She has gotten better at this over the years.

Go to Done Fadeaway when you need hire some steel and ice. She, too, has gotten better at this over the years.

Fonda is the better actress. Dunaway chews the scenery every time.

Dunaway may chew the scenery, but Fonda is made from the same type of wood.

R4, I always thought that Barbarella-era Jane was one of the most flawlessly beautiful women that I have ever seen. Facially, she took on a more severe look by the 1980's when she did all of the exercise videos, IMO.

They co-starred in Otto Preminger's "Hurry Sundown". Dunaway had originally hoped to get the role Fonda played, but was cast instead in a smaller role; in her memoir she writes about how this character came to remind her so strongly of her own mother in her youth that she came to feel she was actually playing her mother in her first feature film. Dunaway hated Preminger, but her mom loved the movie.

They are both smart, incisive actresses, but, for me, Dunaway's great performances in "Bonnie and Clyde" and "Chinatown" are beyond anything Fonda has done.

Jane is the better actress and can play most anything. She can be funny as well. Faye is about style and class. Bonnie and Clyde was probably Faye's most out of the box acting job. But Jane could have played Bonnie - probably with a more sympathetic tone to it.

Dunaway was awesome in Network and Chinatown. However, Fonda has a broader range in her acting. She can be over the top when it is called for or can underplay a scene with tenderness. Both women are classic.

Faye Dunaway was in "Chinatown," which I saw recently for the first time. For that alone, I would say that Faye Dunaway was better.

As far as getting older, I would say that Jane Fonda has done a better job.

R14 Burgess Meredith was hilarious in that over-the-top trailer. He always dove right into whatever role he had and splashed around having fun.

Tell me about it, r16!

I would’ve starred in Chinatown if it hadn’t been for...well, you know.

The producer Robert Evans wanted Fonda for Chinatown, but Nicholson (advised by Warren Beatty) and Polanski pushed for Dunaway.

Jane vs Faye

What about me? I could’ve been a contender!

New thread: Jean Seberg vs. Mia Farrow?

"Chinatown" is actually my choice for the best movie of all time and Faye was the brightest star in the film. She literally killed that role - one of the best acted roles ever. Again, I love both actresses. I don't think that Faye could play Jane's famous parts very well and I certainly don't think that Jane could carry off Faye's roles either. They were both excellent in the pictures that they were chosen. Despite Fonda's statement, Faye would not have pulled off "Klute" or even "On Golden Pond". I can't even imagine Jane in either "Chinatown" or "Mommie Dearest"...or "Network". Oh, and Sharon Tate would have ruined Chinatown - RUINED it.

Excuse me, but hubby dear initially earmarked the role of Evelyn Mulwray in [italic]Chinatown[/italic] for ME!

But then I fucked Steve McQueen...

[quote]Chinatown" is actually my choice for the best movie of all time and Faye was the brightest star in the film. She literally killed that role - one of the best acted roles ever.

She IS amazing in it - it’s the blend of the perfect performer in the perfect role. Evelyn is mistrusting, cultured, guarded and secretly vulnerable, just like batty beauty Dunaway.

The two performers are very different - Fonda by her nature was straightforward and grounded, even when frightened. Dunaway was so self conscious and neurotic, you wanted to wallop her one. She famously played some strong, assured women, but more naturally fit into portraying those that were kind of lost and off balance. Like poor Evelyn.

Fonda was very good in The Morning After, but I'd love to have seen Miss Dunaway in that role. I don't know if it would have been a better movie, but I'm sure it would have had a different kind of intensity.

Don't make me choose.

When Julia was being cast I understand there was the possibility of Jane and Faye together, with Faye as Julia.

Did Faye turn it down? That would have been the year after she won the Oscar for Network. Julia in Julia is really a small part. (I sort of never get all the acclaim Redgrave got for it. She's barely in it.)

Meryl was actually flown to London to audition for Julia because it was such a small role they were looking at unknowns. I think she has said they wanted an unknown so she flew to London then the next thing she heard the had cast Redgrave and gave Streep a small consolation role.

Hard to imagine Miss Dunaway taking a supporting role to Fonda.

Fonda usually had the first choice of roles (again, she was gorgeous just like Faye and nepotism is always a thing). Thank Baby Jesus that Faye landed the important "Dunaway" iconic roles - Chinatown, Network, The Thomas Crown Affair, etc. Both were great actresses, but certainly were not interchangeable.

Wasn't Fonda kind of blackballed from major films during the time in between the Vietnam incident and 1977.

The visit to North Vietnam came in like 72 or so right after her Oscar for Klute. Then 1977 with Julia and Fun with Dick and Jane was touted as her comeback. (she did very little and no major films in that time.) I think Dunaway probably had clear sailing for Chinatown and Network.

The small role given to Streep in JULIA could hardly be a consolation prize. It was her first film. There was no reason at the time to feel a need to console her.

Bonnie and Clyde was OVERRATED. It was a star vehicle for two pretty people. Dunaway and squirrel cheeks Beatty.

And also the proposed remake of The Women in the late 1970s was to star Dunaway, Fonda and Streisand. That was never made.

I'm gonna give it to Faye. "Chinatown" is my favorite film, and she is perfection. Rarely while watching do I think "this is Faye Dunaway." Whereas with Jane (and especially her distinctive speaking voice) I'm constantly thinking about who it is.

I agree with R27. Dunaway would have done fascinating things with that role.

R18 Dunaway was fantastic in that role, very damaged and brittle, she fit the character. She is a great talent and long due for bed own biopic. Though I'm slightly curious what Tate would have brought to the role ,the character certainly would have seemed more fragile. Evidently Dunaway and Roman fought viciously during the filming , they must have despised each other.

For her own biopic I meant.

Jack Nicholson, in Chinatown, was a ham, especially compared to Faye Dunaway, who was so natural. Jack Nicholson also overacted in The Departed.

Dunaway turned down JULIA because she was developing a (never filmed) James Tobak script with George Cukor about free-love suffragette Victoria Woodhull and her presidency run in 1870. It would have costarred Cary Grant.

I think i’ve read that Fonda was willing to play either Hellman OR Julia while that film was being planned. So i’m not sure what the final Dunaway casting would have been. Vanessa Redgrave is incandescent in that part, and it’s hard to imagine anyone else.

BTW, we now know the whole JULIA story is a lie. Lillian Hellman never went through any of that. The Julia figure was a rip-off of Muriel Gardiner - a woman who shared an attorney with Hellman, and was brought to the writer’s attention that way.

[quote]R35 And also the proposed remake of The Women in the late 1970s was to star Dunaway, Fonda and Streisand.

I read it was to be Dunaway, Raquel Welch and Babs. Tho, they probably tossed various names around.

Why can't Dunaway have a small comeback, perhaps in a watercooler miniseries? I would like to see something like that.

Because she’s mean and crazy and has been throughout her career ... so everyone in Hollywood despises her!

There are nice people, like Fonda etc all, to give those roles “of a certain age” to.

Faysie blew it.

The other name in the Julia mix was Streisand who turned down the chance to play Lillian Hellman because she was editing A Star is Born.

[quote]The small role given to Streep in JULIA could hardly be a consolation prize. It was her first film. There was no reason at the time to feel a need to console her.

r33 It was a consolation prize since they had made her fly all the way to London thinking she was up for the title character in a major film specifically telling her they wanted an unknown (though she already was known and had an Emmy for TV) and then cast a big star.

Jerry Schatzberg, the fashion photographer turned film director, took this picture of Fonda in 1964.. A few years later he and Dunaway got engaged.

I would say Dunaway is a good actress, and Fonda is a great actress.

Streep in JULIA

Streep as JULIA

Fred Zinneman the director actually sent Meryl a letter of apology for making her wear that black wig. It was a big debate between the wig person and Zinneman. I think the wig person didn't want to put it on her and Zinneman insisted. Meryl was too afraid to make a fuss.

I read how she never really met Redgrave but one day they shared a car to a set. Meryl said she desperately wanted to ask Redgrave if she should complain about the wig but Redgrave was too busy telling her about Trotsky and Meryl didn't want to interrupt.

Fonda has given some good performances but her patented 'heartfelt' earnest sincerity and quaver in her voice speak to a desire to be taken seriously as an actor, but too often signal that she's 'acting'. Loved her in Klute, though. Dunaway is a different animal all together, at her peak in the '70s, she reminds me of Kidman, albeit a much more over the top Kidman, but both are so good at playing brittle, unstable women. She can be electric or ridiculous, but she's always fascinating to watch because she seems to be utterly unconcerned about what her audience thinks of her. Fonda, on the other hand, seems to be solely concerned with that.

[Italic]Network[/italic] aged better than [italic]Klute[/italic].

I completely disagree. NETWORK is very stagey and preachy, although some of it’s funny. KLUTE is mesmerizing, and has beautiful craftsmanship.

KLUTE also creates a fully rounded female lead, while Dunaway’s character is really just a cartoon monster. And I say this tho I love Faye Dunaway.

They're both so good that when they miss it's so freakin obvious. Dunaway in Mommy Dearest and Twilight of the Golds, and Fonda in Monster in Law and California Suite. But for me tops overall is Fonda seven days a week.

I don't know how anyone could really answer with Fonda. I mean, she's good but Faye is something else entirely. Her roles in Bonnie and Clyde, Chinatown, The Towering Inferno (if only for the dress she wore), Network and Mommie Dearest are remembered today more than Jane's roles are, if that counts for anything.

R56, I disagree about Jane's performance in California Suite. I LOVED her in that role! Her witty, razor-sharp-tongued banter was amazingly brilliant and delivered perfectly IMO. To each their own I suppose.

Both of them turned down Norma Rae and Starting Over, giving Sally Field and Jill Clayburgh big career boosts.

Faye is definitely a bigger diva. Are there even any stories of Jane being a bitch? With Faye there are a lot of notorious and reported incidents: throwing her DVDs out of her car at Blockbuster, starring down people at the Grove, pulling the "don't you know who I am" act all over WeHo, throwing a cup of urine at Polanski, all of Mommie Dearest.

[quote]Are there even any stories of Jane being a bitch?

This is an excerpt from a funny letter by Nancy Dowd, who won an Academy Award for the screenplay "Coming Home":

It’s not easy to stand up to a woman as vindictive, vicious and commercially ubiquitous as Jane Fonda, but I’m glad I did. Her campaign against me, well documented, caused me deep humiliation and grief. Thanks to my undeniable talent, I survived. True, every time in the last thirty years I have thought with relief I would never have to see her stretched face or hear her empty laugh again I turn on a television set and she has re-emerged like make-over Alien, this time as an elderly Christian or whatever her most recent tiresome re-incarnation is. Of course, I can hope that as the apocalypticians say, the end is near, but Jane will more than likely rise from the grave peddling something or other. Some nuisances, like termites and cockroaches, last forever. The Writers Guild strike showed that writers are strong and determined: we can stand up to bullies and credit snatchers like Jane Fonda. I’m happy to say I’ve been doing that for a very long time.

—NANCY DOWD, Castries, Saint Lucia, West Indies

It's hard to compare them, because they're so completely different in my eyes. When I think of Jane, I think of real women and a certain decency in everything she does. I'd want to hang out with her if given the chance. With Faye, I see a true diva in every sense of the word - someone who'd be exhausting to be around, but when she's "on", she shines brighter than anyone else on earth. You don't nail those roles in Chinatown, Bonnie and Clyde, Mommie Dearest, and Network due to sheer luck and attractiveness. Faye clearly had tons of talent, but she's so temperamental and hard to control that she's become almost mythic due to her on set and off set antics rather than her work. There's a true narcissism there that both repels me and fascinates me. I'd never really want to hang out with Faye. She seems to the type who'd begin an afternoon as lovely as can be and then randomly fly off the wall at the most random of moments.

I think Faye's probably done more iconic work. I'd compare Faye and Jane to Glenn Close and Meryl Streep. Streep is always dependable, but has she done much that's truly iconic? Yet, Close is known for playing similar roles as Faye. She excels at those iconic, wicked women.

R61 wow she sounds bitter!

I thought Jane was "adequate" in California Suite. Some of it is Neil Simon's fault. I don't think anyone can top Faye as far as her charisma in Chinatown. Perfect casting. Her look in the movie was iconic and the movie is a top shelf classic. Jane has more of an eagerness to learn and please her audience, like a Labrador retriever and we love her for her hard work because she's Hollywood royalty. She works for her acclaim and has fashioned a consistent career over the years. Dunaway takes acclaim as her due. Her career was built shot by shot by Arthur Penn in Bonnie and Clyde and really put her on the map. Jane's career has been consistent over the years when she wanted it to be. Faye got lucky having Sue Mengers as an agent before they fell out. After Chinatown, she was golden. But she couldn't keep the buzz of her early career because she was a big old diva and still is.

Fonda can be bitchy.

I saw William Friedkin speak once and he said he offered her The Exorcist and she said "why do you think I 'd do that capitalist propaganda crap?" (or something close to that.) He said years later he told her what she had said to him and she was shocked and a bit embarrased that she had said it. (and how The Exorcist is capitalistic propaganda is beyond me!)

She also famously denounced The Deer Hunter back stage at the Oscars when it beat Coming Home saying it was the pentagon's view of the war, though then admitted that she hadn't seen it.

Faye always thinks Mommie Dearest killed her career but it is hard to think of roles she could have done in the eighties. She was too grand and classy by then to do Norma Rae or Silkwood or other a farm movie like all those women did that one Oscar year (Our Sally, Jess, Sissy Spacek.) Maybe Out of Africa would have been ok though I'm not sure if she ever did accents.

Agree R66. Harder to cast than Fonda. I wonder who turned down more roles in their careers.

Roles Fonda either turned down or wasn't quite right for.

Roles Dunaway turned down or wasn't right for.

That site r69 always seems a little inaccurate. (Mary Gross of SNL was cast in Fatal Attraction and Bull Durham?!?!)

But some of them are interesting to read.

I suppose Faye would have been pretty good in Fatal Attraction (but it would have been a little too Mommie Dearest.) and I do remember her quitting Duet for One (though that didn't do much for Julie Andrews.)

Faye chewing the scenery as the suburban Jewish mother role in Twilight.

Faye could have done Norma Rae or Silkwood. Playing Southern wasn't an issue as she said she was a " little southern girl from the wrong side of the tracks who really didn't feel like she belonged." The bigger issue was money, for Norma Rae in particular, since the budget would not allow for an A-lister, which is how Field got it.

And with Silkwood I think she was still living in England.

Field really had the last life with Norma. Jane Fonda, Jill Clayburgh, and Marsha Mason all had to sit there and watch her win the Oscar for it.

(and Bette who is still bitter about it all.)

and wow Dreyfuss was high!!!

make that last laugh above

Michael McDonald’s Faye Dunaway story.

Who will be remembered: Michael Nobody or Miss Faye Dunaway?

Just try to imagine Dunaway in 9 - 5.

Can't.

Dunaway in the Elizabeth Wilson role maybe...or as Mrs. Hart.

Together in Louisiana filming "Hurry Sundown". Dunaway is standing between Michael Caine and the director Otto Preminger.

Every gay comedian in Los Angeles seems to have had a run in with Miss Dunaway. Lies.

Dunaway has “It.” Fonda doesn’t.

“I will not be ignored, Spanky.”

Met her once, she seemed very neurotic and insecure.