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 Maria Callas in the U.S. national tour of the Tony Award winning play "Master Class" by Terrence McNally. Callas was one of Dunaway's favorite characters she ever played. "That woman changed an art form, and not many people can say that. Callas is to opera what Fellini is to cinema." Similarities were made by the press between the career and personalities of Callas and Dunaway as both were seen as perfectionists whose run-ins with directors had them castigated as prima donnas. "I think the play is really about what it takes to do something in life, and it's original in