Warren Beatty

Warren Beatty (Henry Warren Beaty), b. Bichmond, Virginia, 1937 1978: Heaven Can Wait (codirected vfUM Buck Henry). 1981; Reds. 1990: Dick Tracy. I The priced son of well-to-do parents—profesB sionals with strong creative instincts—Beattfl is also the younger brother of ShirltS MacLaine. (If he seems in some ways verydlH ferent from her, that may only prove strength of her influence—for Beatty has taken great pains to look like his own master.) Having grown up near Washington, Beatty did a year at Northwestern before opting for New York and show business. He did some TV drama (he would play Milton Armitage in The Many Lories of Dobie Gillis in 1959-60), anil he had a lead role onstage in William Inge’s A Loss of Roses in 1959. He has never again acted onstage. Then, as a discovery of Eliu Kazan’s, he was running in the steps of Brando and Dean for his full-starring movie debut, Splendor in the Grass. He was sexual, cerebral, troubled, a little withdrawn. He had unquestioned beaut)’ and the early legend of being the enchanter of eostars and any other lady he met. But as an actor, Bt;atty was not open or generous, He seemed reluctant to yield him­self up, and so early on lie had more fame and critical attention than public love. But from the outset, he was regarded as either very intelligent or very difficult: sometimes his own puzzled look has seemed beset by the same question. He was very good as the gigolo to Vivien Leigh in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (6L, Jose Quintero). But he seemed torn between playing aloof, unwholesome young men, or lending himself to lightweight packages. He was tlie phony hero and the unlikable older brother in All Fall Down (62, John Franken-heimer), and he was excellent as the nurse who risks his own breakdown in falling In love with Lilith (63, Robert Rossen). Mickey One (65, Arthur Penn) is a truly pretentious pic­ture, but it still seems remarkable that the young actor got it made, and Beatty is brilliant as the paranoid nightclub entertainer. On the other hand, he was in Promise Her Anything (66, Arthur Ililler) and Kaleidoscope (66, jack Smight), projects with no claim upon 1966, let alone eternity. Beatty was a figure- on the screen, yet he was not popular. Then, in 1967, he took responsibility and control and came of age, by starring in and producing Bonnie and Clyde (67, Penn). His performance was so remark­able in its mixture of good looks and stricken limp, of assertion and shyness, and of that convincingly youthful fatalism that says “Ain’t life grand?” as he recounts how he shot off his toes the day before learning that he was to be released from prison.