Tattoos Celebrity 2012

This ain't your first time at the rodeo; some of you recognized our latest Mystery Guest as full frontal Faye Dunaway! The mask was made for the film adaptation of Christina Crawford's poisonous memoirs, Mommie Dearest (1981), which effectively killed off two careers: Joan Crawford's, and Dunaway's. In spite of its critical drubbing, unintentional hilarity, and general ineptitude, the film's bizarre, fascinating hold on the public's imagination ensured that Crawford's regal reputation would go into a tailspin from which it still hasn't fully recovered; and that Dunaway would spiral from Oscar-winning superstar to straight-to-video industry joke almost overnight. Thirty years later, the names of both Joan Crawford and Faye Dunaway are still inextricably connected with Mommie Dearest.

"I really hate talking about Mommie Dearest! It is like an obsession with people! Why do people need to focus so much on one film I made over 20 years ago? It was not a great time in my life and the film was not an experience I want to think about. Period!"

In all fairness, even before the biggest mother of them all came along, Dunaway's career was marked by wild inconsistency. Her one-two knockout punch of Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) was followed by the disastrous A Place for Lovers and The Arrangement (both 1969); the brilliant Chinatown (1974) and Dunaway's Oscar-winning turn in Network (1976) were bookends for such glossy, all-star pap as The Three Musketeers (1973), The Towering Inferno (1974), and Voyage of the Damned (1976). But Mommie Dearest really ensured that Hollywood was Dunaway with Faye; her next film was the costume flop The Wicked Lady (1983), and such was Dunaway's infamy at this point, it was decided to not show her face in the advertising!

One can only imagine Dunaway thumbing through the script for her next picture, Supergirl (1984), and thinking to herself, "Why not? They want camp -- I'll give 'em camp!" Perhaps looking for a silver lining in the Mommie cloud, Dunaway decided to send up her over-the-top image by purposely camping up a storm as the villainess, Selena. Unfortunately, intentional camp almost always falls flat, and Supergirl was a super-flop.

Since then, Dunaway has had the occasional minor success -- a Golden Globe nomination for her downbeat, deglamorized performance in Barfly (1987); an Emmy win for a guest appearance on Columbo (1993) -- and very public disasters of epic proportions. Dunaway's own, highly-touted sitcom, It Had to Be You, premiered in 1993, and was yanked after only four, critically-reviled episodes. The following year, Dunaway was set to make her musical theater debut in what promised to be her best role in years: Norma Desmond in the Los Angeles production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard. Dunaway was to take over the role from Glenn Close, who had triumphed as Norma on Broadway. It never happened; Lloyd Webber abruptly decided to shutter the musical after Close's final performance, rather than possibly subject Dunaway to "great embarrassment," due to what he deemed her inadequate musical chops. Ouch.

An oddly static ad campaign for Norell fragrances in 1998 introduced the beginnings of some seriously wonky plastic surgery to Dunaway's public; within a decade, her once-fabulous face had become virtually unrecognizable. Another high-profile misfire was The Starlet (2005), a short-lived reality competition show about young Hollywood hopefuls. Faye was the bitchy celebrity judge, a la Janice Dickinson; her would-be catch phrase was "Don't call us; we'll call you." Unfortunately, Dunaway's own phone wasn't exactly ringing off the hook.

Today, Dunaway continues to make small films which no one ever seems to see (Say it in Russian? The Seduction of Dr. Fugazzi?), as well as the occasional television spot. And in spite of the spectre of Mommie Dearest which continues to loom, Dunaway just can't seem to stay away from other complicated, highly-strung, iconic women: her next role is playing no less a diva than Maria Callas in the long-awaited film version of Terrence McNally's Master Class, which Dunaway successfully toured with in 1997.

The enigmatic Klee was the first to recognize the lifelike visage of Miss Dunaway; we are caught without a proper prize, but hey -- we never promised you a rose garden!

We love that you seem to get into these Mystery Guest segments; if you have any photos of potential future guests that you think might stump the panel, please send them to us. As always, thanks for playing, darlings!

"Share three classic movie moments that have, in some shape or form, made you buy things, do things, think things that perhaps you shouldn't have."

That's the challenge set before us by FelixInHollywood. As a rule, we're not particularly fond of memes, but this one intrigued us. Whether we should have bought, done, or thought these things is debatable, but here we go:

The last item we bought after viewing a movie was a pair of deep, golden yellow Sermoneta kid gloves piped in a light, doe brown and lined in cashmere. We were so inspired by Anton Walbrook in The Red Shoes (1948), who wears the most impeccable suits, stylish eyewear, and gorgeous gloves of any man in any film we've ever seen. There's a throwaway moment where Walbrook is at a train station, wearing a simple, flawlessly-cut black suit, with his yellow kid gloves peeking out of his suit pocket. We were enthralled.
Oh, how many times have we done one of these scenes - often with our sparring partner completely unaware of the fact that we were actually channeling Helen Lawson, Margo Channing, or Faye-as-Joan?
When we first came to New York, we thought that life would be like How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) - we'd have a soundstage-sized apartment, scads of beautiful clothes, and handsome millionaires (or at least Rory Calhoun) throwing themselves at our feet.

It's funny, though, how many things (both specific and abstract) have been influenced by films that we love: the way we think, how we conduct ourselves, our view of life in general. We particularly identify with miraculous transformation stories: Bette Davis blossoming from spinsterish "Aunt Charlotte" to confident "Miss Charlotte Vale" in Now, Voyager (1942) is a touchstone in our lives.

Having undergone our own metamorphosis from drab to divoon, we were convinced that Charlotte Vale's triumphant tale was really our own. Everything seemed to mirror our own real life situation. Ugly eyeglasses, unruly brows, and ungainly appearance? Check, check, and check.

Bonita Granville, as Charlotte's bitchily bullying niece, could have been any number of classmates who made going to school an endurance test. "We always ragged Aunt Charlotte...it was only a game!"

And if our own mother wasn't quite the monstrous gorgon so brilliantly essayed by Gladys Cooper, she had the same steely, domineering edge as Mrs. Vale, and we shared the same complex, maddening relationship as Charlotte and her mother ("My mother, my mother, my mother!")

Some other films we've strongly identified with over the years:

In Possessed (1931), Joan Crawford plays Marian, a factory worker who climbs her way up the social ladder by climbing on top of Clark Gable. In one of the film's earliest, best, and best-known scenes, a passenger train filled with beautiful, elegantly-gowned and -tuxedoed swells passes through town, bound for glamorous New York City, while Marian watches, literally from the wrong side of the tracks.

Twenty years later, Crawford was playing nearly the same role, only with even more guts and less sentiment, in The Damned Don't Cry (1950). As smalltown drudge Ethel Whitehead-turned-faux society dame Lorna Hansen Forbes, Crawford knows what she wants and how she's going to get it - and she's none too fussy about the body count.

As we delved deeper into affaires de coeur, we suddenly began imagining our day-to-day routine as produced by Ross Hunter, wardrobed by Jean Louis, with jewels by David Webb, furs by Alexandre, and a swoony title song. We lived out the drama and romance of Back Street (1961) on more than several occasions, although we have never had a showdown with a Vera Miles-esque scorned wife - for better or worse, depending on how you look at it.

Finally, one of the defining, seminal moments in our warped childhood was the first time that we saw Mahogany, the 1975 feature film which elevated Diana Ross to the status of uber-gay icon, while simultaneously nearly ruining her mainstream film career (The Wiz put the final nail in the coffin).

We positively gasped, gaped and gawked at the insane fashion show that Miss Ross put on for 90 glamorous minutes, all designed (yes, she really took credit for it!) by her own hand, and heavily inspired by kabuki, Erté, Ross's own Motown finishing school-run-amok idea of elegance, and a little Boom! (1968) thrown in for good measure.

"DIVA 2" by Erté

ELIZABETH TAYLOR (with Richard Burton and Noel Coward) DRESSED BY VALENTINO IN BOOM! (1968)

Needless to say, in spite of an inspired use of neon tubes, Miss Ross's designs for Mahogany didn't exactly start any new trends - but they did make quite an impression. We were suddenly aware of the power of expressing oneself visually, of making a statement with apparel and adornment - and that epiphany came to us through the medium of film.

DESIGNS BY DIANA ROSS FOR MAHOGANY (1975)

Our love for Mahogany (which is no cinematic classic, we understand) also neatly sums up just why we love these strong, temperamental, brave, glamorous women of the screen: it's the triumph of the underdog, really - from Bette Davis to Joan Crawford; Roz Russell to Barbara Stanwyck; Judy Garland to Diana Ross; none of these superstar divas were classic beauties or demure shrinking violets. They didn't make it to the top on their looks and by playing cute; they made themselves beautiful and glamorous by sheer force of personality, talent and guts, and through constant reinvention. It's a lesson we continue to be inspired by.