Actress Says She Can’t Be Evicted Because She Moved Out
By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY
Published: August 3, 2011
The day after court records revealed that Faye Dunaway would be joining the masses of New Yorkers braving housing court for a landlord-tenant showdown, it was time for the Oscar-winning actress to share her side of the story.
Anne-Christine Poujoulat/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Faye Dunaway, who won an Oscar for the 1976 movie “Network,” at the Cannes Film Festival this spring.
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For Faye Dunaway, Real-Life Role in Housing Court (August 3, 2011)
Ms. Dunaway, a Florida native, spoke with the inflection of a trained actor and the imperiousness of a seasoned celebrity as she staunchly denied that the landlord of the Upper East Side apartment that she began renting in 1995 had ordered her to leave.
“I have not been evicted,” she said in one of three voice mail messages for a reporter with The New York Times in response to phone messages and a Times article on Wednesday about a lawsuit seeking to evict her from a rent-stabilized apartment. “I have chosen to leave because of the state of the apartment, and also because I am spending less and less time in New York.”
Ms. Dunaway said she had finally given up the apartment in May because it was in such bad condition. She said her landlord “refused to paint the house, and bugs were everywhere.”
In the lawsuit, filed Tuesday, her landlord claimed that Ms. Dunaway, whose monthly rent was $1,048.72 for a one-bedroom walk-up apartment in an old tenement on East 78th Street, did not actually live there, but rather lived in California. Rent stabilization rules require that an apartment be the tenant’s primary residence.
In her voice mail messages and in previous messages left with her landlord, Ms. Dunaway accused him of being greedy — prompting a retort by the landlord’s lawyer that those statements were made by an actress whose credits include “Mommie Dearest.”
Ms. Dunaway, 70, who at the peak of her career had a lavish apartment at the Eldorado, said she got the one-bedroom apartment in a walk-up building from her mentor, the playwright William Alfred, who died in 1999. She said that Mr. Alfred had stayed in the apartment and that she had been working on donating some of the last of his possessions to Brooklyn College, where he did his undergraduate work.
Ms. Dunaway said Mr. Alfred had taught her “everything that I know about my art.”
“He was the most important person in my life, with the exception of my son,” she said. “I stayed there out of my deep, deep affection for William Alfred.”
Ernesto Mora, a Brooklyn College spokesman, said Mr. Alfred, a Harvard professor best known for the play “Hogan’s Goat,” had stayed at the apartment “for stretches when he had plays in New York.” In the last year, Ms. Dunaway donated to Brooklyn College some of Mr. Alfred’s books, play posters and collection of eight cuckoo clocks, Mr. Mora said. As recently as last week, Ms. Dunaway contacted the college about donating more items.
Craig Charie, the lawyer representing the landlord, Henry Moses Jr., known as Skip, said Ms. Dunaway had not handed back her keys and appeared to still have some belongings there.
He provided three voice mail messages that Ms. Dunaway left for Mr. Moses on Wednesday morning in which she offered to hand back the apartment keys, told the landlord that she had moved out in May and informed Mr. Moses that she was arranging for a moving company to pick up some papers.
Mr. Charie said he would not remove her items without formal consent from her.
“As of now, I don’t have legal possession; she hasn’t put a thing in writing,” Mr. Charie said. “What if she goes in there and later claims, ‘I had the Hope Diamond there and my Oscar in there and you took it’?”
As for Ms. Dunaway’s complaints about the apartment’s condition, Mr. Moses said, “I have no record of her asking for it to be painted, and the fact that bugs are everywhere is nonsense because we have an exterminating service that comes by once a month and tenants can ask in addition to that for special visits.”
While Ms. Dunaway appears ready to hand back the keys, she took a final swipe at her landlord in one of her voice mail messages.
“He is a slum landlord,” she said. “He has no class.”
Mr. Moses responded by replaying the messages left by Ms. Dunaway.
“I hope you need that money like crazy and you’ll give it to poor people,” she said to Mr. Moses. “I hope you have a terrible life.”
“I have not been evicted,” she said in one of three voice mail messages for a reporter with The New York Times in response to phone messages and a Times article on Wednesday about a lawsuit seeking to evict her from a rent-stabilized apartment. “I have chosen to leave because of the state of the apartment, and also because I am spending less and less time in New York.”
Ms. Dunaway said she had finally given up the apartment in May because it was in such bad condition. She said her landlord “refused to paint the house, and bugs were everywhere.”
In the lawsuit, filed Tuesday, her landlord claimed that Ms. Dunaway, whose monthly rent was $1,048.72 for a one-bedroom walk-up apartment in an old tenement on East 78th Street, did not actually live there, but rather lived in California. Rent stabilization rules require that an apartment be the tenant’s primary residence.
In her voice mail messages and in previous messages left with her landlord, Ms. Dunaway accused him of being greedy — prompting a retort by the landlord’s lawyer that those statements were made by an actress whose credits include “Mommie Dearest.”
Ms. Dunaway, 70, who at the peak of her career had a lavish apartment at the Eldorado, said she got the one-bedroom apartment in a walk-up building from her mentor, the playwright William Alfred, who died in 1999. She said that Mr. Alfred had stayed in the apartment and that she had been working on donating some of the last of his possessions to Brooklyn College, where he did his undergraduate work.
Ms. Dunaway said Mr. Alfred had taught her “everything that I know about my art.”
“He was the most important person in my life, with the exception of my son,” she said. “I stayed there out of my deep, deep affection for William Alfred.”
Ernesto Mora, a Brooklyn College spokesman, said Mr. Alfred, a Harvard professor best known for the play “Hogan’s Goat,” had stayed at the apartment “for stretches when he had plays in New York.” In the last year, Ms. Dunaway donated to Brooklyn College some of Mr. Alfred’s books, play posters and collection of eight cuckoo clocks, Mr. Mora said. As recently as last week, Ms. Dunaway contacted the college about donating more items.
Craig Charie, the lawyer representing the landlord, Henry Moses Jr., known as Skip, said Ms. Dunaway had not handed back her keys and appeared to still have some belongings there.
He provided three voice mail messages that Ms. Dunaway left for Mr. Moses on Wednesday morning in which she offered to hand back the apartment keys, told the landlord that she had moved out in May and informed Mr. Moses that she was arranging for a moving company to pick up some papers.
Mr. Charie said he would not remove her items without formal consent from her.
“As of now, I don’t have legal possession; she hasn’t put a thing in writing,” Mr. Charie said. “What if she goes in there and later claims, ‘I had the Hope Diamond there and my Oscar in there and you took it’?”
As for Ms. Dunaway’s complaints about the apartment’s condition, Mr. Moses said, “I have no record of her asking for it to be painted, and the fact that bugs are everywhere is nonsense because we have an exterminating service that comes by once a month and tenants can ask in addition to that for special visits.”
While Ms. Dunaway appears ready to hand back the keys, she took a final swipe at her landlord in one of her voice mail messages.
“He is a slum landlord,” she said. “He has no class.”
Mr. Moses responded by replaying the messages left by Ms. Dunaway.
“I hope you need that money like crazy and you’ll give it to poor people,” she said to Mr. Moses. “I hope you have a terrible life.”
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