Warren Beatty of the film, he credited Hackman with giving the "most authentic performance in the movie, so textured and so moving," recalls Dunaway. He was impressed with Gene Wilder after seeing him in a play and didn't even need him to audition, in what became Wilder's screen debut. And Beatty had already known Pollard: "Michael J. Pollard was one of my oldest friends," Beatty said. "I'd known him forever; I met him the day I got my first television show. We did a play together on Broadway." "Bonnie and Clyde" went on to be a critical and commercial success, despite the
Faye Dunaway She played the lead role, which was for her "like a dream come true. As with Bonnie, I knew the territory well. Maggie (her character) was a completely wounded soul, a girl who had grown up on the wrong side of the tracks." She next played Paul Newman's girlfriend who is trapped in a burning skyscraper along with several hundred other people in the all-star disaster epic, "The Towering Inferno" (1974). The film became the highest-grossing film of the year, further cementing Dunaway as a top actress in Hollywood. Also in 1974, Dunaway married Peter Wolf, who was the lead