Faye Dunaway may be ready for her close-up, but inquiring minds still want to know if she's ready for a solo.
The Academy Award-winning actress apparently is, having been named Thursday to succeed Glenn Close in the highly coveted role of Norma Desmond in the West Coast production of "Sunset Boulevard.""She's trained to see if she had the voice," said Dunaway's manager, Bob Palmer, who hasn't yet heard his client sing. "She found she did. There are a lot of people walking around with good musical instinct and an instrument that just needs cultivating. I think she'll be fabulous. It's a wonderful part to take."
Dunaway, 53, auditioned twice before composer Andrew Lloyd Webber chose her over a number of others, including Cybill Shepherd, Diahann Carroll, Rita Moreno and Michele Lee.
"She had been seen by Andrew's musical director. He was told that she was good so that's why he saw her," said Lloyd Webber's spokesman, Peter Brown. "All I can tell you is he was involved in the audition. It was his decision."
Dunaway was unavailable for comment Friday, but she told Daily Variety's Army Archerd that she had taken singing lessons for the past two months.
"It's incredible," she is quoted as saying. "How often, at this point in someone's career, do you discover another possibility? It's a new world for me."
After hearing her sing a few lines from "As If We Never Said Goodbye," Archerd reported that Dunaway's voice is "perfect and strong - the emotion was even stronger."
Close is leaving "Sunset Boulevard" June 26 to open the production on Nov. 17 at the Minskoff Theater on Broadway (where another Lloyd Webber show, "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," is nearing the end of its run).
Palmer said he didn't know when Dunaway would begin "Sunset Boulevard " because she just started rehearsals for the feature film "Don Juan de Marco and the Centerfold," co-starring Marlon Brando and Johnny Depp.
"They're going to work around her schedule. She's got a lot on her plate. It's all going to work out now. They'll figure it out," he said.
Rick Miramontez, a spokesman for "Sunset Boulevard" in Los Angeles, said the contract with Dunaway is still being negotiated.
Meanwhile, tickets are available on a limited basis for "Sunset Boulevard" featuring Close as the demented Desmond. Top ticket price for the extravagantly staged musical is $65.
"Sunset Boulevard," based on Billy Wilder's 1950 film starring Gloria Swanson as the faded silent screen star and William Holden as her boy-toy, premiered Dec. 9 at the Shubert Theatre in Los Angeles.
Lloyd Webber was in Los Angeles this week overseeing the recording session for the American cast album featuring Close. Daily Variety said Lloyd Webber called Dunaway on Thursday to tell her she had the job.
"This will work," he reportedly told her. "What this part calls for is a great dramatic actress who can sing - and you're it."
Dunaway is best-known to movie audiences for her dramatic roles in "Bonnie and Clyde," "Chinatown," "Mommie Dearest" and "Network," for which she won a Best Actress Oscar. She also starred opposite Robert Urich on "It Had to Be You," a short-lived sitcom on CBS.