MANHATTAN — Faye Dunaway has a new starring role — in Manhattan Housing Court.
The landlord of the East 78th Street one-bedroom walk-up where Dunaway pays $1,048.72 a month for a rent-stabilized apartment filed a lawsuit Tuesday claiming that she should not be allowed to keep her apartment because her permanent residence is in West Hollywood, Calif., the New York Times reported.
The lawsuit claims Dunaway's son, Liam Dunaway O'Neill, has been living in the apartment as a subtenant.
Rent-stabilization rules require that tenants live in their apartment as primary residences.
The landlord — who is not named in court papers — said that Dunaway has her voter and automobile registrations in West Hollywood. The lawsuit also cited three moving violations she received in California between May 2009 and December 2010.
Dunaway’s neighbors told the New York Times that they had not seen the 70-year-old actress lately. Dunaway first rented the fourth-floor Upper East Side apartment in April 1994.
The apartment could average $2,318 a month on the market, according to the brokerage firm Citi Habitats, the Times said.
Dunaway is due in civil court on August 11th.
She joins the ranks of several famous people fighting over rent stabilized apartments, including Bianca Jagger, who lost her Upper East Side apartment after the court ruled that the British citizen in New York on a tourist visa couldn't possibly have mader her 18th floor digs her primary residence.