One of the most fascinating characters in Hollywood history, Warren Beatty was born Henry Warren Beaty in Richmond, Virginia on March 30, 1937. His mother, Kathlyn, had been a drama teacher but gave it up to settle down in Virginia and raise a family, although it was never in doubt that Beatty and his sister, the actress and dancer Shirley MacLaine, would themselves be raised to pursue stardom - each was urged to be successful and achieve from a very early age.

Beatty attended high school in Arlington, Virginia and attended Northwestern University, but, not to be outdone by his rising-star big sister, soon dropped out to study acting under the legendary Stella Adler. He then got his first screen role, in the TV sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, a role he found "ridiculous" and rapidly abandoned to work instead on the Broadway stage, the highlight of which was his Tony-nominated performance in "A Loss of Roses."

Beatty's first major film role came in the successful drama Splendor in the Grass, as the confused Bud. Critics refused to take the ambitious Beatty seriously, and he strove to turn this around with his arty crime drama Mickey One, directed by Arthur Penn, which did get favorable notices but did not find an audience. Next he starred in a lightweight comedy, Promise Her Anything, along with the lovely Leslie Caron, and the handsome, charismatic Beatty, already an aspiring Lothario, had an affair with his married co-star which was cited in Caron's divorce proceedings.

Beatty teamed up again with Penn for the movie that would elevate his status in Hollywood, the classic Bonnie and Clyde, in which he and co-star Faye Dunaway played the quirky outlaws Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. The movie's powerful performances, strong direction and controversially graphic violence made it a huge hit, and Beatty finally found himself taken seriously.

Over the next period in his career, spanning well over a decade, Beatty starred in, produced and occasionally directed some of the most important films in Hollywood, some critically praised, such as McCabe & Mrs. Miller, others prescient social commentaries, such as Shampoo (which itself became an important event in popular culture), others wonderful takes on Hollywood classics, such as Heaven Can Wait. He capped this all off with his hugely-ambitious recounting of the American radical journalist John Reed's experiences in Bolshevik Russia, Reds, for which Beatty, already nominated for Oscars several times, finally won for Best Director. Beatty was an intrinsic part of the renaissance of Hollywood in the 1970s, when films were being made every year that were important as well as successful.

Beatty's remarkable career stalled in the 1980s. In fact, he was absent from the screen for most of that decade, and when his next film after "Reds" finally came, it was the hugely ambitious and legendarily disastrous Ishtar, one of the biggest film catastrophes of the decade. Beatty's next movie, Dick Tracy was colorful and a box office success, but was greeted with tepid reviews. Following this came Bugsy, a biopic of the life of gangster and Las Vegas visionary Bugsy Siegel, which was another box office failure. Beatty married his "Bugsy" co-star, Annette Bening, and produced and, with her, starred in another expensive disaster, Love Affair. Beatty revisited his "Ishtar" nadir with his expensive 2001 comedy Town & Country, which was both a box office and a critical disaster.

Fortunately, in the midst of all this Beatty's creative best resurfaced in 1998 with his Bulworth, an arch political satire about a liberal California senator forced to resort to the right-wing politics of the day to retain his seat. Disillusioned, he puts out a contract on his own life and decides to graphically show the ugliness that has become politics to the public while he waits to die, but his fatal plan is complicated when he falls for a beautiful young woman from South-Central LA (Halle Berry). "Bulworth" is a reminder that Beatty is still capable of making movies that are remarkable, entertaining and successful.

Beatty is almost as famous for his love life as he is for his movie-making, having been connected with a galaxy of beautiful starlets, a who's who list reported to include Joan Collins, Leslie Caron, Madonna, Julie Christie, Liv Ullmann, Brigitte Bardot, Carly Simon (who is rumored to have written "You're so Vain" about him), Elle Macpherson, Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn, Candice Bergen, Cher, and Britt Ekland. Notorious for his alleged love `em and leave `em treatment of many of these women, an aging Beatty had the tables turned on him by the sultry diva, supermodel Stephanie Seymour, who unceremoniously dropped Beatty to pursue W. Axl Rose of rock band Guns 'n Roses. Soon after that, Beatty settled down with Bening. The couple have four children.
Ishtar (1987): $5,000,000
The Only Game in Town (1970): $750,000
Bonnie and Clyde (1967): $200,000
All Fall Down (1962): $60,000
The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961): $30,000
Splendor in the Grass (1961): $15,000

His political views expounded by the "new" Jay Bulworth in the movie Bulworth are really his own. Brother of Shirley MacLaine. He and sister Shirley MacLaine attended Washington-Lee HS (same school as Sandra Bullock). Attended Northwestern University but dropped out after one year. Member Sigma Chi fraternity. Got his big break opposite Natalie Wood in Elia Kazan's Splendor in the Grass. Dated Natalie Wood briefly after her divorce from Robert Wagner in May 1962. He dated Leslie Caron, Joan Collins, Madonna and Diane Keaton. He was co-respondent in the 1966 divorce case involving the dancer-actress Leslie Caron and the producer Peter Hall. Children, with Annette Bening, Kathlyn (b. 1992), Benjamin (b. 1994), Isabel (b. 1997) and Ella Corinne (b. 8 April 2000) He is the godfather of Melanie Griffith's son, Alexander. Was the first choice to play Michael Corleone in The Godfather, but he turned it down. Was originally cast as the president in Mars Attacks!. Was the first choice to play the lead in The Way We Were. Received ten offers of football scholarship after graduating from high school. He turned them all down. Lives on famed "Bad Boy Drive" a.k.a. Muholland Drive in Beverly Hills, CA. Nicknamed so because its famed residents are bad boy actors Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, and Beatty. Is allergic to oysters. Uncle of actress Sachi Parker. Turned down the role of Bill in Kill Bill: Vol. 1 because of the violent nature of the movie. Tested for the role of Tony in West Side Story. Rumored to have been the subject of Carly Simon hit, 'You're So Vain'. He has a photographic memory for phone numbers. He can dial a touch tone phone using the same hand technique as telephone operators. In the films he produces, he usually plays characters who lose something important by the end of the film. Recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004, along with Elton John, Joan Sutherland, John Williams, and Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. Based his Shampoo character "George Roundy" on celebrity hairdresser Jay Sebring. Was an advisor on George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign. Credited with founding the "political concert" when he and his girlfriend, Julie Christie, funded the "Together with McGovern" concert in 1972 featuring Barbra Streisand, Carole King, James Taylor, and even reuniting Simon and Garfunkel. Was nominated for Broadway's 1960 Tony Award as Best Supporting or Featured Actor (Dramatic) for "A Loss of Roses," filmed as The Stripper with Richard Beymer in the Beatty role. He directed 7 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Jack Warden, Dyan Cannon, Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Maureen Stapleton, Al Pacino and himself (in Heaven Can Wait and Reds. Maureen Stapleton won an Oscar for her performance in Reds. Premiere Magazine ranked him as #29 on a list of the Greatest Movie Stars of All Time in their Stars in Our Constellation feature (2005). Was slated to play the lead role in Francis Ford Coppola's dead project "Megaoplis" John F. Kennedy wanted Beatty to play him in PT 109, after learning that director Elia Kazan had said that if anybody were to play JFK, it should be Beatty since they had so much in common. As Kazan stated, "Warren had everything Jack had. Looks, intelligence, cunning and a commanding eye with the girls. Warren also suffered from lower back trouble". Kennedy himself suggested Beatty to Warner Bros to play him. Jack L. Warner asked Beatty to fly over to Washington to meet JFK and talk about the movie with him, but Beatty did not want to make the trip, nor play the part. Beatty found the script too weak, that there was a surprising lack of action. His assessment turned out to be right: Cliff Robertson played the part and the movie flopped. Months later, JFK and Beatty met and Kennedy had to concede that Beatty's decision not to make the movie had been right. Beatty and Kennedy remained very good friends up until Kennedy's death in 1963. Along with Robert Redford, Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson, Richard Attenborough and Kevin Costner one of 6 people to win and Academy Award for "Best Director", though they are mainly known as actors. Said that if they ever made a movie about his life story, Colin Farrell is the only person he thinks could play him. Lived with Julie Christie from 1967 to 1973. A relative on his mothers side, was the last sitting Communist member of the Canadian Parliament. Besides turning down the lead in The Way We Were, Beatty also rejected Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (because he wanted to work with George Stevens on The Only Game in Town) and The Sting and The Great Gatsby so that he could devote his time to the McGovern presidential campaign. Beatty first espied future long-term lover Julie Christie at the 1967 Royal Command Performance of the film Born Free in London, which he attended with his then-girlfriend, Leslie Caron. Caron and Beatty were situated near Christie in the reception line for Queen Elizabeth II, and Beatty first saw Christie in person when he turned to watch the Queen shake hands with her. Beatty inveigled his friend 'Richard Sylbert' to tell her to call him. She did, he flew up to the San Francisco location of the Petulia shoot and, after a rocky start, they became lovers. She made her first public appearance with Beatty at a sneak preview of _Bonnie and Clyde (1967)_ for the Hollywood elite. It took them several months to rid themselves of their then-current lovers before they came together in a committed relationship, although they usually maintained separate households for the length of their long romance. Most of those who knew them said they shared a passion for the truth. Beatty told his friends he had asked Christie to marry him, but she refused as she did not want children. While filming 'Shampoo' in 1974, Beatty bought his dream house and brought Christie over to view it. When she realized he had already assigned several rooms as nurseries, it dawned on her that their ideas for the future were too far apart to be able to maintain their relationship. She ended her long love affair with Beatty by phone, in the fall of 1974. His longest and most lasting relationship until he married Annette Bening, the mother of his four children, Beatty considered Christie his wife and told the press in 1971 that he would pay her alimony if they split up, if she wanted it. They did, but she didn't. When Beatty was awarded the Irving Thalberg Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences in the year 2000, Christie was one of the friends and co-workers who appeared in a film tribute to her former lover. Became close to Robert F. Kennedy during his 1968 campaign for the Demmocratic presidential nomination. Beatty's relationship with R.F.K. was closer than the one Beatty had had with John F. Kennedy. Beatty was particularly valuable during the campaign in firing up volunteers for such mundane activities as door-to-door canvassing. R.F.K. was impressed by Beatty's thorough understanding of the issues. After the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in Beatty's hometown of Los Angeles, Beatty became a vocal gun control advocate. Once worked as a cocktail lounge pianist. Has produced two films that were nominated for Best Picture and had acting nominations in all four roles: Bonnie and Clyde and Reds After coming to New York at 19 to pursue an acting career, he temporarily supported himself by working as a sandhog during the building of a new tube of the Lincoln Tunnel between New York and New Jersey. He is the only person to be nominated for 4 Academy Awards (Best Picture, Directing, Lead Actor & Screenplay) in the same year in two-times. First for Heaven Can Wait, later for Reds. Oliver Stone has tried casting him twice. Once as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street, and another time as Richard M. Nixon in Nixon. His performance as Clyde Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde is ranked #32 on the American Film Institute's 100 Heroes & Villains. This is ranking he shares with Faye Dunaway, who portrayed Bonnie Parker. Turned down the role of Jack Horner in Boogie Nights. He later said that it was one of the few choices in his career that he regretted. Burt Reynolds garnered an Academy Award nomination for his performance in the film. Received the Irving Thalberg Memorial Award at The 72nd Annual Academy Awards, presented to him by his friend and neighbor Jack Nicholson.