For the vast majority of performers, the moment they were awarded an Academy Award would be among the most significant and unforgettable events of their entire career, if not their whole life.

Faye Dunaway is probably not an exception to this rule. However, for the single actress, who was awarded the title of Best Actress at the 49th Academy Awards on March 28, 1977, for her role in the film Network, which was released in 1976, the morning after was just as remarkable.

Terry O’Neill, who was her companion at the time and would later become her husband, was the photographer who captured the moment and ensured that it would live on forever. The iconic picture of Dunaway, dressed in her dressing gown and standing by the pool of the Beverly Hills Hotel with newspapers scattered all about her, has become the stuff of Hollywood mythology.

In the new HBO documentary Faye, which will make its premiere on Max on July 13, and in a trailer from the film that was sent exclusively to PEOPLE, Dunaway, who is 83 years old, says, “I remember the moment,” when she is presented with the famous piece of photography. “I had won the Oscar for Network the night before, and closer to 5 o’clock, Terry O’Neill tried to persuade me to come to the pool at dawn when the sun came up because he didn’t want a traditional kind of picture where the actress is standing with the Oscar.”

According to her, “But he staged this,” she says. “What I love is that ‘Is that all there is?’ was sort of the theme to it, because at my feet are all of the morning newspapers announcing the winners, and there is also a posthumous Oscar for Peter Finch which was given to him since he had gone away three months previously. It was her co-star in the film Network, which won the award for Best Actor. Therefore, it was a bittersweet experience. There was a swimming pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel, which was a well-known location. But in any case, it was an incredible night that was just insane. Not to be forgotten at all.”

Beginning with her star-making performance opposite Warren Beatty in the 1967 classic Bonnie and Clyde, for which she received her first Oscar nomination for Best Actress, Faye covers the star’s life, loves, and career, beginning with her early years spent growing up in Florida and continuing through her run as one of Hollywood’s top actresses.

She followed up her debut with critically acclaimed films such as Chinatown (1973), Network, and The Thomas Crown Affair (1968). Chinatown received the second nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She was a dazzling beauty who was notorious for her reputation as a tough perfectionist. Then, of course, there was her legendary portrayal as Joan Crawford in the 1980 cult classic Mommie Dearest, which earned her a Razzie Award and was praised and ridiculed by audiences.

Her notable costars, such as Beatty, Steve McQueen, and Jack Nicholson, as well as her directors (her conflicts with Chinatown director Roman Polanski are legendary), her spouses (including O’Neill and Peter Wolf, the vocalist for the J. Geils Band), and her lovers are all discussed in the documentary. She also discusses her more recent diagnoses of bipolar disorder as well as her perception of herself as a “complicated” celebrity.

The premiere of the picture, which was directed by Laurent Bouzereau and took place on May 15 at the Cannes picture Festival, was met with favorable reviews. Among the people who make cameos in it are her co-star Mickey Rourke from the film Barfly, her friend Sharon Stone and her son Liam Dunaway O’Neill, and Mara Hobel, who portrayed Joan Crawford’s daughter Christina when she was a little child in the film Mommie Dearest. (Analysis: Hobel cherished the opportunity to collaborate with Dunaway.)

By Anna

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