Warren Beatty

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Warren Beatty at the 1990 Academy Awards. Photo by Alan Light.
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Warren Beatty at the 1990 Academy Awards. Photo by Alan Light.

Henry Warren Beaty (born March 30, 1937), better known as Warren Beatty, is an American actor, producer, screenwriter, and director. He long had a reputation as a womanizer and playboy, but that reputation has faded since his 1992 marriage to Annette Bening. The Academy Awards honored him with the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 2000, presented by his close friend Jack Nicholson, while in 2004 he received a Kennedy Center Honor.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Beatty was born in Richmond, Virginia's Bellevue neighborhood to an American father whose family had lived there for several centuries, and a Canadian mother of half Scottish and half Irish descent; the family was devoutly Baptist.

His elder sister is the actress and writer Shirley MacLaine.

It's said that Beatty saw his first movie at the Bellevue Theater around the corner from his house.

Beatty got his start in film under Elia Kazan's direction and opposite Natalie Wood in Splendor in the Grass (1961), though he had previous television experience in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959).

At age 30 he achieved critical acclaim and power as a producer and star of Bonnie & Clyde (1967), which was nominated for 10 Academy Awards.

Subsequent Beatty films include McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), The Parallax View (1974), Shampoo (1975), and Heaven Can Wait (1978). The last film gave him the box-office power he hadn't had since Bonnie & Clyde.

He used this to make Reds (1981), a historical epic about famed Communist journalist John Reed in the Russian October Revolution. It won Academy Awards for Best Director (Beatty), Best Cinematography, and Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Maureen Stapleton) while losing Best Picture to Chariots of Fire.

It was nominated for eight other Oscars and joined a handful of films to win Best Director but not Best Picture. Other critically acclaimed works include Bugsy (1991) and Bulworth (1998).

Beatty is the only person other than Orson Welles to receive Oscar nominations in the same year for acting, directing, writing, and producing, and he did it twice, in 1978 and 1981.

Beatty's career as a ladies' man has been marked by a series of well-publicized romances, including Madonna, Isabelle Adjani, Candice Bergen, Leslie Caron, Julie Christie, Joan Collins, Catherine Deneuve, Janice Dickinson, Faye Dunaway, Britt Ekland, Jane Fonda, Melanie Griffith, Daryl Hannah, Goldie Hawn, Margaux Hemingway, Barbara Hershey, Bianca Jagger, Diane Keaton, Elle Macpherson, Joni Mitchell, Michelle Phillips, Gilda Radner, Diana Ross, Jessica Savitch, Diane Sawyer, Stephanie Seymour, Carly Simon (whose song "You're So Vain" is thought by many to be representing him, although Simon has never confirmed or denied this), Inger Stevens, Barbra Streisand, Liv Ullmann, Natalie Wood (who was rumored to have left her first marriage to Robert Wagner for him, which in reality was completely false. The Wagner-Wood marriage ended after filming of "Splendor In The Grass" was finished, at the time that Beatty was in Europe, shooting his second movie "The Roman Spring Of Mrs. Stone" with Vivien Leigh. Over a year after "Splendor" was finished, Beatty and Wood fell in love and entered a brief relationship, while on promotional tour for their movie), and Susannah York.

He settled down at 55, marrying Annette Bening, his co-star in the gangster film Bugsy, in 1992. They have four children: Kathlyn (b. 1992), Benjamin (b. 1994), Isabel (b. 1997) and Ella Corinne (b. April 8, 2000).

Though perhaps not respected for his acting ability as much as some of his contemporaries, Beatty has played a wide range of characters to critical acclaim and has always involved himself heavily in the production of his movies.

In May 2005, Beatty sued Tribune Co. for 30 million dollars in damages, claiming he still maintains the rights to Dick Tracy (1990). Beatty received the rights in 1985 and is now claiming that 17 years later Tribune moved to reclaim them in violation of various notification procedures. Dick Tracy grossed over $100,000,000 USD upon its release in 1990, making it the highest grossing film of Beatty's career. There are also rumors that he plans to make a sequel.

In 2006, Beatty was named Honorary Chairman of the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, succeeding Marlon Brando. In November the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced that Beatty would receive the Cecil B. DeMille award at the 2007 Golden Globes.

[edit] Bonnie & Clyde

Because of his work on Bonnie & Clyde (1967), Beatty is generally regarded as the precursor of the New Hollywood generation, which included such filmmakers as Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Martin Scorsese.

Afraid of being typecast as a milquetoast leading man, and still smarting over the What's New, Pussycat? debacle, where he was outmaneuvered by Woody Allen and eventually forced to leave the production, Beatty produced Bonnie & Clyde out of desperation, and as a means of controlling the projects he was involved with. He hired the untested writers Robert Benton and David Newman, as well as director Arthur Penn, and controlled every facet of production, including cast, script and final cut of the film, as he would throughout the rest of his career, be it as producer/director or only as producer. (It should be noted that, in Bugsy it was Beatty the producer who had final cut on the film, not Barry Levinson, the director.)

Bonnie & Clyde was an unqualified blockbuster upon its release, and became a cultural touchstone for the youth culture of the era. The film, along with Easy Rider, marked the beginning of the so-called New Hollywood era, where studios gave unprecedented freedom to filmmakers to pursue their own idiosyncratic vision. It is generally agreed that, were it not for Beatty and his idiosyncratic vision expressed in Bonnie & Clyde, which combined humor, violence, and startling realism, studios would never have allowed the New Hollywood filmmakers to make the films for which they are famous, and the stagnation of the film industry during the 1960's would have continued through the 1970's.

[edit] Politics

A longtime activist in various liberal political causes, Beatty has, at various times, been extremely active in the presidential politics of the Democratic Party.

In 1968, he hit the campaign trail for the first time, supporting Senator Robert F. Kennedy's bid for his party's presidential nomination. His involvement in the senator's campaign, which included stump speaking and fundraising, was cut short when Kennedy was shot and killed by Sirhan Sirhan on the same night that he won a crucial primary in California.

Four years later, Beatty joined the campaign of Senator George McGovern as an advisor. As part of the so-called "Malibu Mafia," a group of Hollywood celebrities who were part of the candidate's "inner circle," Beatty gave McGovern's campaign manager Gary Hart advice about the handling of public relations and was instrumental in organizing a series of rock concerts which raised over $1 million for the senator's campaign.

In 1984, and again in 1988, Beatty was to play a similar role in Hart's own presidential campaigns. Hart, who had, by that time, become a senator himself, had become friends with Beatty during the 1972 campaign and the relationship had grown closer during the intervening decade. After Hart's second campaign imploded over allegations that he had committed adultery with a former beauty queen named Donna Rice, a mutual friend of the two explained why they were so close: "Gary always wanted to have Warren's life and Warren always wanted to have Gary's. It was a match made in heaven."

Beatty himself was to become presidential timber during the summer of 1999. After it became clear that the only two contenders for the Democratic Party's nomination were to be Vice President Al Gore and former Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey, Beatty made it generally known that he was dissatisfied with the two choices and began to drop hints that he might be willing to seek the nomination himself. After meeting with several powerful liberal activists and influential Democratic operatives, including pollster Pat Caddell, who had worked previously for Hart, McGovern, and President Jimmy Carter, and adman Bill Hillsman, who had worked on the campaigns of Senator Paul Wellstone and Governor Jesse Ventura, Beatty announced in September of 1999 that he would not seek the nomination. However, he continued to be courted by members of a different political party, the Reform Party, who were looking for an alternative to Pat Buchanan, a conservative who had switched parties after losing the Republican Party's presidential nomination for the third time in a row. Despite frequent entreaties by Governor Ventura, real-estate magnate Donald Trump, and syndicated columnist Arianna Huffington, Beatty refused to enter the race and Buchanan eventually won the Reform Party's nomination.

Despite his decision not to seek the presidency in 2000, Beatty intimated that he might still run at a later time, telling reporters that he would do so if he thought he "could make an impact on the debate."

As California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's popularity with California voters dropped, Beatty campaigned against the special election in November 2005. He was the keynote speaker at the California Nurses Association's 2005 convention, and recorded radio ads urging voters to reject Schwarzenegger's ballot proposals. The propositions were defeated at the ballot box, increasing speculation that Beatty may run against Schwarzenegger in the 2006 election. But, in early 2006, Beatty announced he would not seek the democratic gubernatorial nomination.

[edit] Trivia

In order to meet Wikipedia's quality standards, this article's trivia section requires cleanup.
Content in the trivia section should be integrated into other appropriate areas of the article.
  • Beatty studied acting at Northwestern University but dropped-out after his freshman year.
  • While at Northwestern University, appeared in the annual Dolphin show.
  • Beatty graduated from Washington and Lee High School in Arlington, Virginia. [1] [2]
  • Beatty is 6'2".
  • Made "Top 10 stars of the year" once, 1978.
  • The political views mentioned by Senator Bulworth (played by Beatty) in Bulworth very closely mirror Beatty's own views in real-life.
  • The part of Bill in the film Kill Bill was originally written for him. However, Beatty turned down the role because he felt the film was too violent.
  • Some of his early jobs include a cocktail lounge pianist, construction worker and a "rat catcher" in a Virginia movie theater.
  • He is one of the many people rumored to be the subject of Carly Simon's song, "You're So Vain". In November 2005 Handbag.com had the following regarding these rumors: Rocker Sir Mick Jagger and actor Warren Beatty have been ruled out as the inspiration for Carly Simon's hit single You're So Vain. The singer/songwriter has romanced both men but insists neither is the elusive person behind the 30-year-old classic. And she is reluctant to ever reveal the self-obsessed character who prompted her to musically vent her anger, insisting the enduring speculation keeps her entertained. She says, "I'm amused by the interest in that song. "There's one obvious answer that nobody has yet come up with, so it just goes on. "But I know revealing his identity would be somewhat of an anti-climax."
  • Beatty is also a health-food enthusiast.
  • Warren Beatty's anticipated run for president in 2000 was lampooned by Gary Trudeau in his strip Doonesbury. In it, the character B. D. (Doonesbury) is shocked when his wife Boopsie gets a campaign contribution envelope...the joke being that Beatty could generate millions of dollars by having each of his former conquests send in a dollar to his campaign fund. When the crestfallen B.D. asks her why she dated him, she answered, "Well, it was the '70s. It was kind of like cocaine...you'd meet a girl in the bathroom who'd say, 'So, have you tried Warren Beatty?'

[edit] Filmography

Preceded by
Sean Penn
from 1986-1989		 'Lover of Madonna (entertainer)
1989-1990		 Succeeded by
Lenny Kravitz
from 1990-1990
Preceded by
Goldie Hawn, Gene Kelly, Walter Matthau, George Segal, and Robert Shaw
48th Academy Awards		 "Oscars" host
49th Academy Awards (with Ellen Burstyn, Jane Fonda, and Richard Pryor)		 Succeeded by
Bob Hope
50th Academy Awards
Preceded by
Robert Redford
for Ordinary People		 Academy Award for Best Director
1981
for Reds		 Succeeded by
Richard Attenborough
for Gandhi

[edit] References

IMDB 
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000886/bio
allmovie.com 
http://www.allmovie.com/ (search for "warren beatty"); resulting URL does not seem to be bookmarkable.
Academy's database 
http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_awards/BasicSearchInput.jsp (search for "beatty"); resulting URL does not seem to be bookmarkable.
E!Online 
http://www.eonline.com/Facts/People/Bio/0,128,1367,00.html
Yahoo! Movies bio 
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/contributor/1800020836/bio
AP story on Tracy suit
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=763937
Amburn bio 
Ellis Amburn, The Sexiest Man Alive : A Biography of Warren Beatty, HarperCollins Publishers Inc., New York, 2002. ISBN 0-06-018566-X
Finstad bio 
Suzanne Finstad, Warren Beatty : A Private Man, Random House, Inc., New York, 2005. ISBN 1-4000-4606-8
  • Detailed references available in a subpage.(incomplete)

[edit] External links

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