Warren Beatty is principally an actor but also an increasingly sophisticated and successful writer, producer, and director. Virile to a fault, Warren Beatty’s long, lean good looks have had women panting in the aisles for three decades. He has often played the part of a rebel, a role he has also enjoyed playing in real life. That rebellious nature led him to buck the Hollywood system and put himself on the cutting edge of commercial viability with movie projects that deal with sexual, cultural, and political issues that many others might have happily chosen to ignore. Warren Beatty’s surprising success, however, helped him gain virtually total control over his own projects.
Warren Beatty is the half-brother of actress Shirley MacLaine. Like MacLaine, he had his start as an actor in amateur productions staged by their mother. After a short spell of aimlessness following high school and a stint at college, Warren Beatty decided to follow in his half-sister’s footsteps and become an actor. He studied with Stella Adler and soon began to make headway as a television performer, appearing regularly in that medium during the late 1950s, most memorably as a continuing supporting character on the sitcom, Dobie Gillis.
Beatty’s big break came when he appeared on Broadway in A Loss of Roses, which eventually led to his movie debut starring opposite Natalie Wood in Splendor in the Grass (1961). Women went wild for the handsome newcomer, and his film career was solidly launched. His sex appeal was further enhanced by his playing a gigolo in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961). Warren Beatty then gave strong, off-beat, and fascinating performances in a string of relatively uncommercial movies, among them Lilith (1964) and Mickey One (1965). He had a following of loyal film fans by this time, but he had yet to become a major star.
That all changed when he chose to produce his own vehicle, BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967). The film was a surprise hit with both critics and with filmgoers. Warren Beatty emerged from the enterprise wealthy, respected, and famous. His film appearances in the rest of the 1960s and early 1970s were uneven. He was excellent in McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971) and The Parallax View (1974) but thoroughly forgettable in The Only Game in Town (1970) and Dollars (1971). When he once again took control of his own films, Warren Beatty hit pay dirt, producing and cowriting the frisky sex farce Shampoo (1975), a movie that also poked fun good-naturedly at Beatty’s reputation as a womanizer. That same year he starred in MIKE NICHOLS’s The Fortune, a film that was far better than its ticket sales indicated. But then it was back to controlling his own destiny again, codirecting, coproducing, and cowriting the script for Heaven Can Wait (1978), a remake of an old ROBERT MONTGOMERY movie, updating the original hero from a boxer to a football player. The film was a smash. Warren Beatty was honored with three Oscar nominations, as Best Director, Best Actor, and (as producer) Best Picture.
Warren Beatty reached the apex of his career three years later when he directed, produced, cowrote, and starred in Reds (1981), the ambitious, epic BIOPIC of American communist John Reed. It was a project that seemed from the very start a totally uncommercial venture, yet Warren Beatty not only made a compelling masterpiece; he also turned it into a moneymaker. Most surprising of all, the Hollywood establishment didn’t shy away from his courageous undertaking; they bestowed a Best Director Academy Award upon him for his work. He also won a Golden Globe for Reds.
Since Reds, however, neither the critics nor film fans have been kind to Warren Beatty. His clout as a box-office draw has been somewhat diminished by his (and Dustin Hoffman’s) flop in Elaine May’s hugely expensive comedy Ishtar (1987). Warren Beatty made a comeback playing the title roles in Dick Tracy (1990) and Bugsy (1991). In the latter film, playing the mobster who made Las Vegas, Beatty was impressive, winning an Oscar nomination and receiving the Best Actor award from the National Board of Review. He then teamed with Annette Bening, who had earlier played his “moll” in Bugsy and was his off-screen love, and Katharine Hepburn to remake Love Affair (1994).
He ended the decade playing the title role in Bulworth (1998), a savage satire on politics and big business. In an over-the-top performance, he stars as a disillusioned senator who begins to tell the truth about race, politics, and finance after he has hired a hit man to kill him. Both Warren Beatty and the film were critically acclaimed. Unfortunately, he also appeared in the disastrous Town and Country (2001), a failed screwball comedy that bombed at the box office.
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1. Gilbert Andreson alias Broncho Billy and early Hollywood
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