Faye Dunaway's stunning then-and-now photos as she celebrates 85th birthday – see her transformation

Faye was born in Bascom, Florida, in 1941. She took dance, piano and singing lessons as a child and later graduated from Boston University with a degree in theater. 

She found success on the stage in the late '50s and early '60s, including in Arthur Miller's play After the Fall.

Faye made her screen debut in the 1967 film The Happening, and followed this up with Hurry Sundown in the same year alongside Jane Fonda and Michael Caine. The film earned her a Golden Globe nomination for New Star of the Year.

Her career exploded thanks to a starring role in 1967's Bonnie and Clyde alongside Warren Beatty. She beat out stars like Natalie Wood and Jane Fonda for the famous part.  

"It put me firmly in the ranks of actresses that would do work that was art. There are those who elevate the craft of acting to the art of acting, and now I would be among them," she wrote in her 1995 memoir Looking For Gatsby: My Life.

"I was the golden girl at that time. One of those women who was going to be nominated year after year for an Oscar and would win at least one. The movie established the quality of my work…it would also turn me into a star." The film earned 10 Oscar nominations, including one for Best Actress.  

Faye fell in love with her A Place for Lovers co-star, Marcello Mastroianni, in 1968, and the pair had a three-year affair before going their separate ways due to his unwillingness to leave his family for her. 

"There are days when I look back on those years with Marcello and have moments of real regret. There is that one piece of me that thinks that had we married, we might be married still," she wrote in her memoir.

"It was one of our fantasies that we would grow old together. He thought we would be like Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, a love kept secret for a lifetime. Private and only belonging to the two of us."

After a career lull in the early '70s, she came back with a vengeance in 1974's Chinatown, followed by After the Fall in the same year.

Faye tied the knot with her rocker husband, Peter Wolf, in 1974. He was the lead singer of The J. Geils Band, and the actress shared with People that their connection was "very emotional". The couple divorced in 1979.

Faye won an Oscar for her role in the 1976 film Network, in a moment seared into her memory. 

"I will never forget the moment and the feeling when I heard my name. It was, without question, one of the most wonderful nights of my life," she wrote in the memoir.

"The Oscar represented the epitome of what I had struggled for and dreamt about since I was a child. The emotional rush of getting this accolade, the highest one this industry can award you, just hit me like a bomb. It was the symbol of everything I ever thought I wanted as an actress."

Faye married her second husband, photographer Terry O'Neill, in 1982. The pair had met five years prior when he took pictures of her for a feature with her former husband. Faye and Terry adopted a son, Liam, in 1980, yet divorced in 1987 after five years of marriage.  

Faye's career continued to soar in 1994 when she won an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series thanks to her performance in It's All in the Game.

"I was overwhelmed by the generosity of spirit my colleagues extended me that night. It was like being wrapped up in a warm embrace," she recounted in her memoir.

"Though this is more often than not a town of grand illusions and transitory friendships, the moment seemed heartfelt, and touched me deeply."  

Faye reunited with her Bonnie and Clyde co-star, Warren Beatty, at the 2017 Academy Awards, in a moment that would go down in history. As the pair presented the award for Best Picture, Faye announced the wrong film, La La Land, instead of the correct one, Moonlight, due to an envelope mix-up backstage. 

"I was very guilty," she later said on the Today show. "I thought, I could have done something, surely. Why didn't I see Emma Stone's name on the top of the card?"

"But something about that moment just combined to make us both not able to perform what normally one would perform. Normally, we would say, 'This is the wrong card.' But it didn't happen that way."

Faye revealed in her 2024 documentary, Faye, that she had struggled with bipolar disorder throughout her life. "The mania we tap into, and the sadness, of course…I don't know how all that works exactly but I understand that I need all of that to use in my craft," she told The Independent.  

"It has been a difficulty, of course, as a person sometimes. It's something I've had to deal with and overcome and understand. It is something that is part of who I am, and that now I can understand and deal with much more."

Faye continues to look ageless in recent appearances, including at the Cannes Film Festival red carpet for Mad Max: Furiosa in 2024. She looked stunning in a black pantsuit with a white shirt underneath and an eye-catching red necklace to complete the look.