 Dunaway took dance classes, tap, piano and singing, graduated from Leon High School in Tallahassee, Florida, and then studied at Florida State University and University of Florida, and graduated from Boston University with a degree in theatre.She spent the summer before her senior year in a summer stock company at Harvard's Loeb Drama Center, where one of her co-players was Jane Alexander, the actress and future head of the National Endowment for the Arts.In 1962, at the age of 21, she took acting classes at the American National Theater and Academy.