Warren Beatty

The sister got there first. Shirley MacLaine was a movie star before her younger brother finished high school. He was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1937, to two teachers, and grew up mostly in Arlington, where he played football well enough to be offered college scholarships. He turned them down, spent one year on liberal arts at Northwestern, quit, and went to New York for Stella Adler's acting classes. He laid brick, washed dishes and dug tunnels between auditions. Television came first — Studio One, Playhouse 90, a season on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis — then a Tony nomination for A Loss of Roses, then Elia Kazan cast him opposite Natalie Wood in Splendor in the Grass, released in October 1961.

He was 30 when he produced Bonnie and Clyde. Warner Bros. hated it, so Beatty took a share of the profits instead of a fee and the studio, expecting a flop, agreed. It opened in August 1967 to hostile reviews and limited regional bookings. Beatty accused the studio of neglect, threatened to sue, and got a general release. Bosley Crowther attacked the film repeatedly in the New York Times and the paper dropped him as its critic that year. Pauline Kael defended it in the New Yorker and was hired there. It made a fortune, and New Hollywood followed.

What he wanted from the fortune was control. He produced and co-wrote Shampoo in 1975, then produced, co-directed, co-wrote and starred in Heaven Can Wait in 1978. Then he spent 32 million dollars of Paramount's money on Reds, a film about John Reed, the American communist who reported the Bolshevik revolution and is buried in the Kremlin wall. He produced it, directed it, co-wrote it and played the lead. It opened in December 1981, less than a year into the Reagan administration, and won him the Academy Award for directing. Ishtar followed in 1987, cost 51 million dollars and returned 14 million, a flop famous enough to become shorthand. Dick Tracy in 1990 made money. Bulworth in 1998 got him another screenplay nomination. That is nearly the whole list.

The political work gets filed as a hobby, which it was not. In 1972 he sat inside George McGovern's campaign, traveled constantly, organized fundraising, and staged benefit concerts at the Forum and Madison Square Garden with Streisand, Simon and Garfunkel, Joni Mitchell and James Taylor. Campaign manager Gary Hart said Beatty had invented the political concert. In 1999 he was urged to run for president himself and publicly weighed it before declining, the same year the Academy gave him the Irving G. Thalberg Award. He married Annette Bening in 1992, after a private life reported as relentlessly as the films. He has directed five features in nearly 40 years. The scarcity was the method.

Warren Beatty's life against the full span of the corpus — the fading end marks a life still in progress.

• Bonnie and Clyde film
  Produced at 30 — he forced Warner Bros. into a general release 1967
• Shampoo film
  Produced, co-wrote and starred — directed by Hal Ashby 1975
• Heaven Can Wait film
  Produced, co-wrote, co-directed with Buck Henry, and starred 1978
• Reds film
  Produced, directed, co-wrote and starred — 32 million dollars from Paramount 1981
• Dick Tracy film
  Produced, directed and played the title role 1990
• Bulworth film
  Co-wrote, co-produced, directed and starred — Oscar-nominated screenplay 1998

• 1955 aged ~18 Leaves Northwestern after one year for New York He studied under Stella Adler and worked as a dishwasher, bricklayer's assistant and sandhog.
• October 10, 1961 aged 24 Film debut in Elia Kazan's Splendor in the Grass Opposite Natalie Wood. It won him the Golden Globe for New Star of the Year.
• August 13, 1967 aged 30 Bonnie and Clyde opens in the United States Beatty produced it. Warner Bros. gave it limited regional bookings and no promotion.
• October 21, 1967 aged 30 Pauline Kael defends the film at length in the New Yorker The magazine hired her as its staff critic. Bosley Crowther, who had attacked it in the New York Times, was finished as that paper's reviewer.
• 1972 aged ~35 Organizes fundraising and benefit concerts for George McGovern Four for McGovern at the Forum and Together for McGovern at Madison Square Garden.
• December 4, 1981 aged 44 Reds opens A 32 million dollar Paramount picture about an American communist, released 11 months after Reagan took office.
• March 29, 1982 aged 44 Wins the Academy Award for Best Director Reds took three Oscars from 12 nominations.
• May 15, 1987 aged 50 Ishtar opens It cost 51 million dollars and returned 14 million.
• 1999 aged ~62 Receives the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award The same year Democrats pressed him to run for president.

• Stella Adler 1901–1992
  Acting teacher who trained Marlon Brando and broke with Lee Strasberg studied under
• Pauline Kael 1919–2001
  The New Yorker's film critic from 1968 to 1991, who turned reviewing into a first-person argument and picked the fights that defined the field. defended by
• Clyde Barrow 1909–1934
  The West Dallas boy the Eastham Prison Farm turned into a killer bent on revenge. played
• Bonnie Parker 1910–1934
  Barrow Gang member and the most photographed outlaw of the Depression produced the film about
• Robert Altman 1925–2006
  Made overlapping dialogue, drifting cameras and enormous casts into an American film language, lost Hollywood for a decade, and came back at 67. directed by
• Quentin Tarantino b. 1963
  Director of Pulp Fiction influenced