Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America
Starred Review. In his refreshing biography, Biskind (Easy Riders, Raging Bulls) examines Beatty's dual—and often dueling—status as Hollywood legend and notorious womanizer without letting either subsume the other. Beatty's film career began with a starring role in director Elia Kazan'sSplendor in the Grassopposite Natalie Wood, the first of his co-stars with whom he had relationships (the list includes Leslie Caron, Julie Christie, Diane Keaton, and Annette Bening, whom he married). As producer and star of 1967'sBonnie and Clyde, Beatty inhabited the brief and violent life of the titular bank robber in a film Pauline Kael called the most exciting American movie sinceThe Manchurian Candidate. From 1971'sMcCabe & Mrs. Miller, now considered one of the finest westerns of all time, to his Oscar-winning turn as director in 1981'sReds(which he both produced and starred in), Beatty had a hand in some of New Hollywood's most important films. But Biskind does not gloss over the fact that Beatty has not had a box office hit since 1990'sDick Tracy, nor does he ignore the string of flops that have deflated the actor's career (Ishtar,Bugsy,Love Affair, etc.). Yet his respect for Beatty never dwindles, and readers are left with a complicated portrait of a complicated man, arguably a great actor of his generation.(Jan. 5)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.