Beatty, Warren

Beatty, Warren (1937- ), American film star-also producer, screenwriter, and director-whose matinee-idol appearance and playboy image belie a formidable intelligence and artistic ambition. Born Henry Warren Beaty, the younger brother of actress Shirley MacLaine, in Richmond, Virginia, he dropped out of Northwestern University after one year, then studied acting with Stella Adler. After work in television and theatre, he made his screen debut co-starring in Splendor in the Grass (1961) for Elia Kazan. Early, anti-heroic roles confirmed him as a serious actor (All Fall Down, 1962; Mickey One, 1965), but it was not until the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde that he achieved stardom, two Academy Award nominations-as producer and for his performance as Depression outlaw Clyde Barrow-and Hollywood clout. He gave what was perhaps his finest performance in McCabe and Mrs Miller (1971) for Robert Altman, and his most enigmatic in Alan J. Pakula's The Parallax View (1974), then assumed creative control as star, producer, and co-writer of Hal Ashby's Shampoo (a thinly veiled self-portrait, 1975), and as star, producer, co-writer, and co-director (with Buck Henry) of the fantasy-comedy Heaven Can Wait (1978). The latter brought him Oscar nominations in four categories, as did his next: for Reds (1981), a passionate and detailed historical epic about left-wing journalist John Reed, he won the Academy Award for Best Director, and also the Best Picture and Director awards of major critics' associations.

Throughout the 1980s Beatty developed projects for other directors, most notoriously the critical and commercial fiasco Ishtar (directed by Elaine May, 1987), in which he co-starred. He produced, directed, and played the title role in Dick Tracy (1990), a lavish attempt at a live-action comic strip, then scored as co-producer and star of Barry Levinson's Bugsy (1991), a portrait of Hollywood gangster Bugsy Siegel. Bugsy brought him two more Academy nominations, and also put an end to his bachelorhood when, at the age of 55, he married co-star Annette Bening. The couple subsequently appeared together in Love Affair (1994).

Beatty has been active in American Democratic politics (notably the 1972 presidential campaign of George McGovern), and virtually all of his important films are pointed meditations on American society and values. Beatty wrote, directed, co-produced, and starred in Bulworth (1998), a satire of US politics for which he picked up several award nominations.