Spacey aside, this week’s column is devoted to divas.  Well, I suppose Kevin qualifies…in his own way.  Much of the entertainment business’ collective eyes were on the Cannes Film Festival.  Front and center were two of our favorite divas – one alive, and one deceased.  You may not believe this, but Faye Dunaway is the living one.  As the subject of her own documentary, FAYE, she came off as credible and sympathetic.  I know – there’s a lot of that going around!  Laurent Bouzereau has made films about Roman Polanski and William Friedkin – so Faye must have been a walk in the park!  Still, she has the ability to surprise people.  Like she pulled a bipolar diagnosis out of her ass.  Not a surprising diagnosis, to be sure, but certainly the revelation was designed to elicit sympathy.  “I don’t mean to make an excuse about it, I am still responsible for my actions,” says a contrite Dunaway.  Her strapping son Liam adds, “If she wasn’t in so much pain, would she have been that good?  You have to take the good with the bad.”  You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both, and then you have the facts of life.

Then there’s Elizabeth Taylor, who passed away 14 years ago and still feels as relevant as ever – more so than Miss Dunaway.  Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes is based on 40 hours of in-depth audiotaped interviews Liz did in 1964 with Richard Meryman – the same person who did the last interview with Marilyn Monroe.  These tapes were used for an autobiography Meryman worked on with Taylor.  They provide the backbone of a detailed look at Taylor’s life – at least up until 1964.  The flick is well-assembled by director Nanette Burstein (who worked with the Widow Meryman, who found the tapes), who previously worked on the docs about Hillary Clinton and Robert Evans.  Like the Faye and Spacey films, this will turn up on HBO Max.