Warren Beatty
Henry Warren Beatty[a] (né Beaty; born March 30, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker. His career has spanned over six decades, and he has received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award and three Golden Globe Awards. He also received the Irving G. Thalberg Award in 1999, the BAFTA Fellowship in 2002, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2007, and the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2008.[8]
Warren Beatty
- Actor
- filmmaker
1956–present
As director:
4
- Shirley MacLaine (sister)
- Sachi Parker (niece)
Beatty has been nominated for 14 Academy Awards, including four for Best Actor, four for Best Picture, two for Best Director, three for Original Screenplay, and one for Adapted Screenplay – winning Best Director for Reds (1981). Beatty is the only person to have been nominated for acting, directing, writing, and producing in the same film, and he did so twice: first for Heaven Can Wait (with Buck Henry as codirector) and again for Reds.[b]
Beatty made his acting debut in Splendor in the Grass (1961) followed by Bonnie and Clyde (1967), McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), and Shampoo (1975). He also directed and starred in Heaven Can Wait (1978), Reds (1981), Dick Tracy (1990), Bugsy (1991), Bulworth (1998), and Rules Don't Apply (2016), all of which he also produced. Beatty received a Tony Award nomination for his Broadway debut in A Loss of Roses (1960).
Early life and education
Henry Warren Beaty was born on March 30, 1937, in Richmond, Virginia. His mother, Kathlyn Corinne (née MacLean), was a teacher from Nova Scotia. His father, Ira Owens Beaty, studied for a PhD in educational psychology and was a teacher and school administrator, in addition to working in real estate. His grandparents were also teachers. The family was Baptist.[9][10] During Warren's childhood, Ira Beaty moved his family from Richmond to Norfolk and then to Arlington and Waverly, then back to Arlington, eventually taking a position at Arlington's Thomas Jefferson Junior High School in 1945. During the 1950s the family resided in the Dominion Hills section of Arlington.[11] Beatty's older sister is actress, dancer and writer Shirley MacLaine. His uncle by marriage was Canadian politician A.A. MacLeod.
Beatty became interested in movies as a child, often accompanying his sister to theaters. One film that had an important early influence on him was The Philadelphia Story (1940), which he saw when it was re-released in the 1950s. He noticed a strong resemblance between its star, Katharine Hepburn, and his mother, in both appearance and personality, saying that they symbolized "perpetual integrity".[4] Another film that influenced him was Love Affair (1939), starring one of his favorite actors, Charles Boyer. He found it "deeply moving", and recalled that "[t]his is a movie I always wanted to make."[4] He remade Love Affair in 1994, starring alongside his wife Annette Bening and Katharine Hepburn.
Among his favorite TV shows in the 1950s was the Texaco Star Theatre, and he began to mimic one of its regular host comedians, Milton Berle. Beatty learned to do a "superb imitation of Berle and his routine", said a friend, and often used Berle-type humor at home. His sister's memories of her brother include seeing him reading books by Eugene O'Neill or singing along to Al Jolson records.[4] In Rules Don't Apply (2016), Beatty plays Howard Hughes, who is shown talking about and singing Jolson songs while flying his plane.[12]
MacLaine noted — on what made her brother want to become a filmmaker, sometimes writing, producing, directing and starring in his films: "That's why he's more comfortable behind the camera ... He's in the total-control aspect. He has to have control over everything."[4] Beatty doesn't deny that need; in speaking about his earliest parts, he said "When I acted in films I used to come with suggestions about the script, the lighting, the wardrobe, and people used to say 'Waddya want, to produce the picture as well?' And I used to say that I supposed I did."[13]
Beatty played football at Washington-Lee High School in Arlington. Encouraged to act by the success of his sister, who established herself as a Hollywood star, he decided to work as a stagehand at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. during the summer before his senior year. After graduation, he was reportedly offered ten college football scholarships, but turned them down to study liberal arts at Northwestern University (1954–55), where he joined the Sigma Chi fraternity. Beatty left college after his first year and moved to New York City to study acting under Stella Adler at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. He often subsisted on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and worked odd jobs, including dishwasher, piano player, bricklayer's assistant, construction worker, and, relatively briefly, a sandhog.[14]
Career
1950s and 1960s
Beatty started his career making appearances on television shows such as Studio One (1957), Kraft Television Theatre (1957), and Playhouse 90 (1959). He was a semi-regular on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis during its first season (1959–60). His performance in William Inge's A Loss of Roses on Broadway garnered him a 1960 Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Play and a 1960 Theatre World Award. It was his sole appearance on Broadway.[15] Beatty enlisted in the California Air National Guard in February 1960 but was discharged the following year due to a physical disability. He remained on inactive duty after that time.
Beatty made his film debut in Elia Kazan's Splendor in the Grass (1961), opposite Natalie Wood. The film was a major critical and box office success and Beatty was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, and received the award for New Star of the Year – Actor.[16] The film was also nominated for two Oscars, winning one.
Author Peter Biskind points out that Kazan "was the first in a string of major directors Beatty sought out, mentors or father figures from whom he wanted to learn."[5] Beatty, years later during a Kennedy Center tribute to Kazan, told the audience that Kazan "had given him the most important break in his career."[5] Biskind adds that they "were wildly dissimilar—mentor vs. protegé, director vs. actor, immigrant outsider vs. native son. Kazan was armed with the confidence born of age and success, while Beatty was virtually aflame with the arrogance of youth."[5] Kazan recalls his impressions of Beatty: