Revealed: Faye Dunaway, 83, has bipolar disorder as the Oscar-winning star of Bonnie & Clyde fame opens up in new documentary

Faye Dunaway, 83, has revealed she suffers from bipolar disorder.

The diagnosis was shared in the Oscar-winning star’s new documentary, titled Faye, which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival.

The critically acclaimed star, who was an A-list actress in the 1960s and 1970s with hits like Bonnie & Clyde and Chinatown, as well as The Thomas Crown Affair and Network, has been called difficult for decades.

Her new diagnosis may explain those many years of unusual behavior.

‘I worked with a group of doctors who analyzed my behavior, who prescribed me pills that they thought would be good for me. And that helped,” the star says in the film Page six.

‘So I’m quieter. But throughout my career, people know there have been tough times.”

The film directed by Laurent Bouzereau of HBO Documentary Films. The film features interviews with Sharon Stone and Mickey Rourke.

“I don’t mean to make any excuses for it, I’m still responsible for my actions,” Dunaway also said in her film.

“But this is what I came to understand: this was the reason for them. It’s something you have to be aware of, you have to try to do the right thing to take care of it.”

Dunaway appears to have accepted life with her mental illness.

“It’s a sensitivity and it’s something that’s just part of my makeup,” she said in the film.

‘Thank God there are medicines and there are studies, and there are doctors who deal with this and I have been able to benefit from that. Medicines are crucial and without medicines you fall back into what is psychological and biological.’

Her son, Liam Dunaway O’Neill, 43, also appears in the documentary.

‘If she hadn’t been in so much pain, would she have been so good? You have to take the good with the bad, that’s just life,” he said.

“She started out as a normal person who wanted to be famous, and ended up as a famous person who wanted to be normal.”

Dunaway made her first public appearance in four years at the Cannes Film Festival this week.

She walked the red carpet at the premiere of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga starring Chris Hemsworth and Anya Taylor-Joy.

Also in the documentary she says that she almost wasn’t cast in Bonnie & Clyde, because Jane Fonda was ready for the role.

Warren Beatty also wanted to work with his own girlfriend at the time.

But the director insisted that Faye be given the lead.

And Faye discussed collaborating with Roman Polanski on his classic Chinatown.

He became annoyed when her real hair kept popping through her wig and ruining the scenes, and eventually the director wanted to pull her hair out.

Dunaway ran to her trailer, but was later persuaded when she was told she could wear a hat.

Indeed, in the film she wears a very stylish hat while shooting a scene with Jack Nicholson.

In 1981, her career collapsed after she so successfully portrayed Joan Crawford as an abusive mother that fans began to believe that Faye was also abusive, or at least too much like Crawford to be comfortable with.

The film has become a camp classic.

In the 1990s, Dunaway made a cameo in the Pierce Brosnan version of The Thomas Crown Affair, and she appeared in Gia with Angelina Jolie, but her career slowed.

That infamous Tonight Show clip was also shared in the new documentary.

Johnny Carson asks Bette Davis if there was a co-star she couldn’t stand.

‘Yes. Faye Dunaway,” Davis responded immediately. “And you can ask anyone else and they’ll tell you the same thing!”

They had worked together on a TV movie in 1976, The Disappearance of Aimee.

Dunaway does not address Davis’ mean comments.

Dunaway began her career as a Broadway actress in the early 1960s, appearing in Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons and Arthur Miller’s After the Fall.

She was taught by method acting pioneer Elia Kazan at his Lincoln Center Repertory Company and is considered one of the finest actresses of her generation.

In 1967, she made her breakthrough as Bonnie Parker in Arthur Penn’s biographical crime drama, Bonnie And Clyde.

Although the film was controversial upon its release for its depiction of intense violence, Dunaway was nevertheless propelled to stardom.

She followed it up with a role in Norman Jewison’s The Thomas Crown Affair in 1968, for which she was again praised.

Problems began to arise in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when Dunaway starred in a series of unsuccessful films, including A Place for Lovers, The Extraordinary Seamen and The Arrangement.

Her performance in Roman Polanski’s Chinatown brought her back into the spotlight in 1974 and garnered critical acclaim, including an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.

Dunaway won the award just a few years later, after a critically acclaimed performance on Network.

She will next collaborate with Harvey Keitel and Andrew McCarthy in an upcoming film titled Fate for director Jonathan Baker.

“There’s a good chance it will be one of the most memorable love stories of our time,” says Baker, who is also a producer on the film. Deadline Monday.

The film is described as “a suspenseful, supernatural romance” by the publisher, who noted that it will be released internationally at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival through the Highland Film Group company.

She has been married twice; with rocker Peter Wolf from 1974 to 1979 and with Terry O’Neill from 1983 to 1987.