Beatty, Warren

▪ American actor, director, and producer

original name  Henry Warren Beaty 

born March 30, 1937, Richmond, Virginia, U.S.

      talented and handsome American leading man who has also produced, directed, and written screenplays. He is best known for his politically charged portrayals of somewhat outcast but charming heroes.

      The younger brother of actress Shirley MacLaine (MacLaine, Shirley), Beatty attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, for one year before studying with famed acting coach Stella Adler (Adler, Stella) in New York City. He occasionally appeared on stage and then in 1959 earned a recurring role in the television series The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959–63). Beatty made a strong screen debut as a tortured teenager in love in Elia Kazan (Kazan, Elia)'s Splendor in the Grass (1961), but his next films, although interesting efforts, were mostly financial disappointments.

      Taking command of his career, Beatty assigned himself the duties of star and producer for Bonnie and Clyde (1967), the story of depression-era bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow (Bonnie and Clyde). Counterculture audiences of the 1960s identified with the film's outlaw heroes, thanks largely to Beatty's performance, which was filled with much compassion for Barrow and the poor in America. The film, directed by Arthur Penn, (Penn, Arthur) with whom Beatty had worked on Mickey One (1965), also received much attention for the artfully rendered climactic shoot-out, which set new standards for screen violence. It subsequently became a colossal hit and a milestone in cinema history.

      Never one to rush into projects, Beatty acted in only four films in the next seven years. His next big hit was Shampoo (1975), a comic sexual romp, flavoured with a left-wing sensibility, that Beatty starred in, produced, and cowrote with Robert Towne. In it, Beatty plays a womanizing hairdresser who finds it impossible to juggle all his lovers on the eve of President Nixon's election in 1968. Even more successful was Heaven Can Wait (1978), a showcase vehicle for Beatty's comedic talents. For this film, Beatty was nominated for Academy Awards in four separate categories (best actor, picture [producer], writing, and direction), an unprecedented achievement in Hollywood history and an achievement he was to repeat with his next film, Reds (1981).

      Reds was the film that established Beatty as a serious filmmaker. The epic, romantic tale of John Reed (Reed, John), an American communist who influenced the Russian Revolution of 1917, the film received Oscar nominations in all the major categories and won for Beatty an Oscar for best director. He did not direct again for nine years, when he chose as his next vehicle a star-studded adaptation of the comic strip Dick Tracy (1990). His notable films of the 1990s include Bugsy (1991) and Love Affair (1994), both costarring Annette Bening, whom Beatty married in 1992—an act that tempered somewhat Beatty's long-standing playboy reputation. In 1998 he cowrote, directed, and starred in Bullworth, playing a U.S. senator whose disillusionment with the political system is fueled by his immersion in hip-hop culture. Despite the accolades he has received, Beatty has also been part of two of Hollywood's most expensive failures, Ishtar (1987) and Town & Country (2001). In 2008 Beatty received a lifetime achievement award from the American Film Institute.

Additional Reading

John Kercher, Warren Beatty (1984); Lawrence J. Quirk, The Films of Warren Beatty (1990); John Parker, Warren Beatty: The Last Great Lover of Hollywood (1994).

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