Faye Dunaway Fired from Broadway for Physically Assaulting Crew Member

Academy Award-winning actress Faye Dunaway was just fired from the Broadway-bound show “Tea at Five” after she slapped a crew member and created a backstage environment that was described as “hostile” and “dangerous.”

The New York Post reported that Dunaway was playing actress Katherine Hepburn in the show, which was trying out at the Huntington Theater in Boston before heading to Broadway. On July 10, however, the performance was canceled minutes before curtain because Dunaway slapped and threw various objects at a crew member who was trying to help her with her wig. Enraged by the cancellation, Dunaway began “verbally abusing” the crew to the point where they were “fearful for their safety,” according to a source.

The producers of “Tea at Five” released a brief statement saying that they had “terminated their relationship” with Dunaway and that the role of Hepburn will be recast with another actress when the show heads to London in the spring.

Dunaway had reportedly been excited to return to Broadway for the first time in 37 years, and all seemed to be going well at first when she was cast.

“She seemed committed to the role, and fun to be around,” a source said.

However, things took a turn during a photoshoot when someone gave Dunaway a salad for lunch and she threw it on the floor, explaining that she was watching her weight and that the food was better off on the floor than in her hand. The source said that Dunaway was often late for rehearsals, sometimes by as much as two hours and that she never learned her lines despite having the script for six months. During her shows in Boston, Dunaway was fed lines through an earpiece.

“98 percent of the play came through the earpiece,” the source said.

Another source in production said that Dunaway would leave “troubling, rambling, angry” voicemails to the creative team in the middle of the night and that she insisted that nobody wear white to rehearsals because it “distracts me.” Nobody was allowed to move when she rehearsed onstage because that would distract her as well.

Faye Dunaway’s Meltdown

The weekend before she was fired, Dunaway reportedly had a full meltdown at the Huntington Theater when she demanded that the crew get down on their hands and knees and scrub the floor of her dressing room. She also allegedly began throwing mirrors, combs, and boxes of hairpins at the staff and tearing out gray hair from her character’s wig because she wanted to play a younger version of Hepburn than the script called for.

This is far from the first time Dunaway has behaved this way, as she has been known as one of the most difficult people to work with in show business for decades. While touring the nation as Maria Callas in Terrence McNally’s “Master Class” in the 1990s, Dunaway often showed up an hour late for performances and had bellhops rearrange the furniture in her hotel room in the middle of the night because she did not like the “flow” of the room. When one theater sent a white limousine to pick her up, Dunaway allegedly threw a temper tantrum because she hates the color white.

Dunaway is currently in Europe and has not commented on her latest firing.