Daily Variety, May 6, 1994 Army Archerd

"This will work" Andrew Lloyd Webber told Faye Dunaway Thursday morning when he called to say she would take over for Glenn Close as Norma Desmond when Close departs Sunset Boulevard at the Shubert June 26.  "What the part calls for is a great dramatic actress who can sing-and you're it,"  Webber added to an ecstatic Dunaway.  "What a classy thing for him to do-to call me," the actress said later. She sang for Webber and his musical director, David Caddick, at a suite in the Bel Air Hotel on Tuesday. She was accompanied at the piano by Tom Shell as she sang ,"With One Look" and "As if We Never Said Goodbye", from the show.  "Andrew asked me to sing it higher," Faye said.  "He let me play it like a prizefighter, and I discovered a lot about myself as I did it.  I've always wanted to sing and I've never sung". [Army then had her sing] 

Her voice was perfect and strong-the emotion was even stronger. "It's incredible" Dunaway said, "How often, at this time in someone's career, do you discover another possibility.  It's a new world for me. He (Webber) has been so accessible.  He goes with the acting ability, encouraging the voice.  He's so elegant".  The article goes on to say she had been working daily on her voice for 2 months, discusses other projects she was doing and ended with "She left-on a cloud-for a singing lesson."

Daily Variety, May 18, 1994
LUPONE, LLOYD WEBBER SETTLE 'SUNSET' SNUB

Patti LuPone settled late last week with the Really Useful Group in their dispute over casting of the Broadway production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Sunset Boulevard"... LuPone originated the role of Norma Desmond in London last July with the understanding that she would reprise on Broadway.  In the interim, however Glenn Close opened the show in Los Angeles to great acclaim.  Lloyd Webber, insisting that he was pressured by co-producers Paramount Pictures, recently announced that Close would play the silent film queen when the show opens on Broadway...

Daily Variety, June 24,1994
`SUNSET BOULEVARD' DONE AWAY
NO MORE DESMOND IN LA; SHOW TO CLOSE SUNDAY

Concluding that Faye Dunaway would not be able to carry his show, Andrew Lloyd Webber abruptly pulled the plug on the Los Angeles production...  The move stunned his cast, his investors in The Really Useful Company production, the Shubert Organization, and ticket buyers who had spent $4 million in advance sales to see Dunaway portray movie queen Norma Desmond..... After hearing Dunaway sing for the first time Monday, according to sources within the production Lloyd Webber decided that the actress would not be ready in time.  Also in on the decision were director Trevor Nunn, and choreographer Bob Avian all of whom felt the show could not survive without a star of comparable magnitude.  "She had met with Andrew Lloyd Webber regarding the transition from drama into music" Dunaway's manager Bob Palmer, told the AP "She felt wonderful about it and very sure of herself.   On Wednesday we were told of this decision.  We're totally baffled because we didn't have a clue there was a problem with the music."....

An announcement from Lloyd Webber's rep in NY Peter Brown acknowledged that "it was concluded after several weeks of rehearsal and vocal preparation that the musical demands of the role were such that it was not possible for (Dunaway) to perform as scheduled."  But last week it had also become clear that Dunaway was not inspiring the kind of box office run that Really Useful had anticipated....
Rather than risk the show's high-profile reputation Lloyd Webber decided to shutter... The LA closing is the last chapter in one of the theatre's most riveting soap operas in years.   It began with a tortuous tryout for Patti LuPone who finally opened the show last July at the Adelphi in London.  It continued when, in the aftermath of Close's acclaimed opening in Dec. Lloyd Webber publicly waffled on a contractual commitment to bring LuPone to Broadway....

...And even before Dunaway was tapped, there were reports she didn't have the vocal chops for the demanding role.  Like much of the speculation surrounding Sunset those reports proved to have been
correct....

Daily Variety, June 27, 1994
DUNAWAY'S NOT FADING AWAY
ACTRESS TAKES CASE TO THE PRESS

Faye Dunaway on Friday offered a primo example of how to win over the press and public, transforming her image from below-standard singer to wronged woman in just half an hour.   [There follows a description of the news conference. Relevant quotes follow] she called Lloyd Webber's decision "yet another capricious act by a capricious man."

One Upsmanship-"Mr. Lloyd Webber has been peripatetic throughout this entire process-changing his mind from day-to-day. Does he worry that his work is so fragile that it might break apart if we moved the songs outside of a range that he feels comfortable with. I had more confidence in Sunset boulevard than perhaps he."

Daily Variety, July 19, 1994
LLOYD WEBBER BATTLES BACK

Impresario Andrew Lloyd Webber has told actress Faye Dunaway he dropped her from his musical "Sunset Boulevard" to save her from embarrassment because her singing was not good enough.  In a letter to Dunaway made public on Monday the composer denied her claim that the decision taken last month not to proceed with the Los Angeles production of the show was "capricious".  "Great embarrassment could have occurred... It would have been very unfair to put you through this situation," Lloyd Webber told Dunaway in a letter published by London's Evening Standard newspaper.

Lloyd Webber closed down the show rather than proceed with her in the lead role.   Dunaway has said she will sue Lloyd Webber for her full contract fee of $425,000.   The newspaper said Lloyd Webber had provided it with a text of the previously confidential letter after it published Dunaway's own account of the affair.