Product Description

This is the in-depth biography of Warren Beatty, Hollywood legend, and the first person to receive Academy Award nominations twice as an actor, director, producer and writer for a single film. His movies include "Bonnie and Clyde", "Shampoo", "Reds", "Heaven Can Wait", and "Bugsy". A well-known womaniser, the notches on Beatty's bedpost read like a who's who of female stardom. His liaisons have included Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Linda Eastman (later McCartney), Maria Callas, Cher, Brigitte Bardot, Barbara Streisand and Jane Fonda. Including a wealth of previously unreported information on early affairs with Joan Collins and Natalie Wood, to his relationship with Madonna, this book also unearths Beatty's intriguing family background - including his highly charged and competitive relationship with his older sister Shirley MacLaine - and how he left his reputation as an international Casanova behind to finally construct a solid marriage to Annette Bening. Extraordinarily driven and motivated, Warren Beatty was one of the young film-makers who revolutionised Hollywood in the sixties and seventies, working alongside such greats as Faye Dunaway, Roman Polanski, Jack Nicholson, Hal Ashby, Robert Altman and Al Pacino. Along with figures like Clint Eastwood, he became a Hollywood player in every aspect of the movie business - a new breed of star. Through interviews with his colleagues, the book aims to shed light on his films and his unique way of working. This book tells the story of how movie making changed in the sixties and seventies. Beatty was one of the first actors to take a greater role in movie production, ending up with a much higher stake in his movies' fates. Later he also blazed a trail in politics, becoming a key power broker within the Democratic Party and attracting controversy along the way.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1183095 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-09
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 416 pages

The Guardian, 11 January 2003
'A fascinating essay in disenchantment'

Sunday Times, 5 January 2003
'Much of the analysis is perceptive and entertaining'

Film Review
'Impressively researched ... contains some dynamite revelations ... this epic biography paints a vivid picture of his hedonistic lifestyle'

Customer Reviews

Standard biography of Beatty...
I'm quite an admirer of Warren Beatty, who has consistently tried to be interesting since the 1960s & has been involved with several works of substance: All Fall Down, Bonnie & Clyde, McCabe & Mrs Miller, The Parallax View, Shampoo, Heaven Can Wait, Reds, Bugsy & Bulworth. He is one of the most important figures in American cinema- being the prime-motivator behind Bonnie & Clyde (1967) which kickstarted the decade or so revolution of New Hollywood, from Bonnie & Clyde to Heaven's Gate. Beatty was the precursor of such great American filmmakers as Coppola & Scorsese, and without him the history of American cinema would not be the same.

Amburn's book is a fairly entertaining read, despite the fact it's cobbled together from magazines/newspapers & has plenty of quotes from Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls (which tells you pretty much what is here, but in a more entertaining fashion & with some knowledge of films). The emphasis is gossip-based and tabloid; well, it is published by Virgin! It is up to date, with discussions of more recent Beatty works, such as Bulworth & the mess that was Town & Country. But it didn't tell me much that a two-page article in Uncut magazine a few years ago did...This book frequently goes off the point- e.g. the Polanski case that saw him become an exile, Diane Keaton reportedly having a miscarriage after getting back together with Al Pacino. Hal Ashby is pretty much sumarised in a paragraph, in a manner that suggests Amburn read the bits on Ashby in Biskind's book. A lot of the information here is just gossip and extremely repetative- at times it was like reading the Warhol Diaries written by Joan Rivers, or an even better satire of Truman Capote's diaries than the one PJ O'Rourke did in Age & Guile...Jack & Angelica, & Dustin & Diane & Julie & here's a bit about some newscaster Beatty saw for a bit who died in a car crash with such and such and here's some politics-lite etc.

& having read several Beatty-biogs, I'd say it wasn't much different in approach to Warren Beatty: The Last Great Lover of Hollywood or The Films of Warren Beatty. I suppose people can't resist it, here's a man who is quite a myth and rumoured to have had relations with all sorts of glamorous women. It's a pity they don't want to talk about the films- Reds doesn't get talked about much, just slightly talked around - which is surprising as it's the most significant film Beatty has worked on. Beatty ought to be written about in a more academic way as he's been deeply involved in many of his films, co-writing Shampoo, co-directing Heaven Can Wait, producing Bonnie & Clyde etc. If you've never read a Beatty-biog, this book probably isn't that bad & will kill an afternoon in the sun (though David Thomson's Beatty book is the best one written so far). & it's notable that Amburn leaves out Beatty's almost collaboration with Quentin Tarantino for Kill Bill- though at least we're spared some more tedious cod-philosophising. & a lot of the references to Beatty's supposed pre-nature sound to me like some sort of jibe from the author at his subject. Which is all a bit Albert Goldman. & why has the title to this been changed (well apart from the inner sleeve) from The Sexiest Man Alive to Warren Beatty: A Biography? A standard biography, quite good value for £6.99 (perhaps), but of more interest to people who like to read about Hollywood stars copulating than American cinema...