Beatty, Warren (Henry Warren
Beaty)
[key], 1937–, motion picture actor, director, producer, and
screenwriter, b. Richmond, Va. An eminently bankable star, the handsome,
charismatic, yet oddly elusive leading man made his film debut in
Splendor in the Grass (1961). His reputation as a
Hollywood Don Juan often overshadowed his considerable talents, which were
nonetheless apparent in his next smash hit, Bonnie and
Clyde (1967), which he also produced. Among his more notable
later movies are Robert Altman's
McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971); The Parallax
View (1974); the very popular Beatty-produced
Shampoo (1975);
Heaven Can Wait (1978); the ambitious
and romantic saga of the Russian Revolution Reds (1981),
for which he won the best-director Oscar; the colossal comedic flop
Ishtar (1987); the comic book–like Dick
Tracy (1991), costarring Madonna; Bugsy (1991),
in which his complex and forceful gangster portrait is perhaps his most
effective performance; Love Affair (1994), costarring his
wife, Annette Bening; the political satire Bulworth (1998),
and a fictionalized biography of Howard Hughes, Rules Don't
Apply (2016). Long active in liberal politics, he briefly
received media attention in 1999 as a potential presidential hopeful. The
actress Shirley Maclaine is his sister.
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