Warren Beatty

HENRY WARREN BEATTY

Hollywood movie actor, director, screenwriter and producer.

He was born March 30, 1937, in Richmond, Virginia, USA.

Younger brother of actress Shirley MacLaine.

He studied acting at the famous Stella Adler School. He played in the theater and on TV (the popular TV series The Many Romances of Dobie Gillis, 1959).

He made his feature film debut with Elia Kazan in Splendor in the Grass (1961). Kazan, who discovered many movie stars, saw in him not only a handsome man from the TV series, but above all an actor with remarkable dramatic talent. However, to reveal this talent for real, Beatty had to wait another six years. In 1967 came out one of the landmark films in Hollywood history "Bonnie and Clyde" by Arthur Penn, in which Beatty played the role of Clyde Barrow, a bank robber, along with his girlfriend Bonnie Parker (actress Faye Dunaway), causing terror in the southern states in the 1930′s. His Clyde is not a gangster. He is a rebel, a romantic who refuses to accept the laws of bourgeois society, who fights it and ends up being its victim. The role of Clyde (Oscar nomination) makes Beatty one of the most popular young actors in Hollywood.

Later Beatty preferred entertaining films over serious dramatic work. In 1971, he created a very unpleasant portrait of a brothel owner in the Wild West in Robert Altman's anti-western "McCabe and Mrs. Miller. In 1974 he played in the fashionable at the time of "paranoid thriller," Alan J. Pakula film "The Case of Parallax. Great popularity with the public enjoys witty satirical comedy Hal Ashby "Shampoo" (1975, the script Beatty and the author of "Chinatown" Robert Thune), in which he played a hairdresser-lover (the actor himself almost all his stellar career rumored as the most rampant ladies' man of Hollywood).

In 1978, he made his directorial debut with the sci-fi comedy Heaven Can Wait, a remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941). Beatty also played the lead role, a soccer player who, after a ridiculous death in heaven, discovers that he was not expected so soon and his soul comes back in the guise of a millionaire. The film was one of the box office leaders of the year and earned Beatty nominations for film (as producer), director, adapted screenplay (with Ellen May) and lead male role.

Three years later, he made a completely unexpected film, Reds, an epic account of the life of American journalist John Reed, author of Ten Days That Shook the World, about the October Revolution in Russia, who died of typhus in a Moscow hospital at age 33. Beatty wrote the script and directed a smart, detailed, meticulously made, beautifully acted, though rather cold and aesthetically detached film. Beatty's John Reed is a dreamer and a romantic, an enemy of philistine boredom, full of a desire to take part in changing the world for the better. This aspiration leads him to travel to distant Russia and witness the tremendous changes, to meet their organizer, Lenin. The film features a strong ensemble cast - from Reed Beatty playing Reed to Diane Keaton as his mistress and soulmate Louise Bryant and Jack Nicholson as playwright Eugene O'Neill. The film was nominated for an Oscar in 12 categories, and the statuette was awarded to Maureen Stapleton for supporting actress, cameraman Vittorio Storaro and the director.

After the success of "Reds," Beatty did not appear on screen for six years. And in 1987 he starred with his friend Dustin Hoffman in one of the most flawed films of the 1980s, "Ishtar" (directed by Helen May). The comedy about two failed musicians in the midst of a coup d'état in an Eastern country, failed at the box office and won the Golden Raspberry anti-award as the worst film of the year. And in 1990 directed "Dick Tracy" - a very curious parody-stylization of gangster movies, staged on the basis of a popular comic book. The basis of success - interesting semantic and visual solutions to the film. Trying to give the film a grotesque, as if drawn, look, Beatty covered all the negative characters with layers of makeup, creating amazing, spectacular masks. And second, with the support of production designer Richard Silbert, cinematographer Vittorio Storaro and composer Danny Elfman, the director brilliantly recreated the vivid world of the comic book on screen. He deliberately turned his characters into also as if they were drawn caricatures: Al Pacino as the conniving mobster, Dustin Hoffman as the snitch, Madonna as the nightclub singer. "Dick Tracy" did well at the box office and won three Oscars - for song, production designer and makeup.

The following year he played one of his best roles in Barry Levinson's serious gangster film "Bugsy", a biography of the legendary gangster Benjamin Siegel, known not only for his criminal activities, but also for turning Las Vegas into the "entertainment capital". In spite of the critical acclaim and ten Oscar nominations (including two wins for art direction and costumes), the film did not have much success at the box office, due to its excessive coldness and unfocusedness. Indeed, although the overall skill of the crew and Beatty's acting are respectable, it's hard to understand what the film is about and who the main character was (and even what he was killed for).

It was on the set that Beatty met his future wife, actress Annette Bening. In 1994, he starred alongside Bening in the melodrama "Love Affair". This story of tragic love was filmed earlier - in 1939 and 1957 (with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr in the lead roles). In the interpretation of Beatty she looked a complete anachronism. Approval of critics, but the full apathy of the audience waiting black comedy "Bulvort, in which Beatty played a politician, involved in a grand scandal.

In life he is one of the most enthusiastic representatives of politics in Hollywood, in the late 1990′s, even seriously thought about running for president of the United States.

The release of the comedy The Town and the Country (2001) was delayed for more than a year. But, coming to the screens, the film failed.

In 2002 he turned down the role of Bill in the Quentin Tarantino movie "Kill Bill", because he considered the script too bloody.

PRIZES AND AWARDS

Academy Award:

1981 - Best Screenplay ("Reds")

1999 - Irving Thalberg Award.

Oscar Nominations:

1967 - Best Actor ("Bonnie and Clyde")

1975 - Best Screenplay ("Shampoo")

1978 - Best Actor (Heaven Can Wait)

1978 - Best Director (Heaven Can Wait)

1978 - Best Adaptation (Heaven Can Wait)

1981 - Best Actor (The Reds)

1981 - Best Screenplay (Reds)

1991 - Best Actor (Bugsy)

1998 - Best Screenplay ("Bulworth")

Golden Globe Award:

1961 - Best Debutante

1978 - Best Actor, Comedy/Musical (Heaven Can Wait)

1981 - Best Director (The Reds)

2006 - Award for Contribution to Cinematography

Golden Globe nomination:

1961 - Best Actor, Drama ("Splendor in the Grass")

1967 - Best Actor, Drama (Bonnie and Clyde)

1975 - Best Actor, Comedy/Musical (Shampoo)

1981 - Best Actor, Drama ("The Reds")

1981 - Best Screenplay (Reds)

1991 - Best Actor, Drama ("Bugsy")

1998 - Best Actor, Comedy/Musical (Bullworth)

1998 - Best Screenplay ("Bulworth")

Golden Globe Award:

1961 - Best Debutante

1978 - Best Actor, Comedy/Musical (Heaven Can Wait)

1981 - Best Director (The Reds)

2006 - Award for Contribution to Cinematography

Golden Globe nomination:

1961 - Best Actor, Drama ("Splendor in the Grass")

1967 - Best Actor, Drama (Bonnie and Clyde)

1975 - Best Actor, Comedy/Musical (Shampoo)

1981 - Best Actor, Drama ("The Reds")

1981 - Best Screenplay (Reds)

1991 - Best Actor, Drama ("Bugsy")

1998 - Best Actor, Comedy/Musical (Bullworth)

1998 - Best Screenplay ("Bulworth")

Directors Guild of America Award (1981):

Best Director ("Reds")

Directors Guild of America Award nomination (1978):

Best Director ("Heaven Can Wait")

Screenwriters Guild of America Award:

1975 - Best Original Screenplay, Comedy ("Shampoo")

1978 - Best Adapted Screenplay, Comedy ("Heaven Can Wait")

1981 - Best Original Screenplay, Drama ("The Reds")

Saturn Award (1978):

Best Actor ("Heaven Can Wait")

Best Screenplay ("Heaven Can Wait").

Saturn Award nomination:

1978 - Best Director ("Heaven Can Wait")

1990 - Best Actor (Dick Tracy).

BAFTA Award (2001):

British Academy Man of the Year Award

BAFTA Nominations:

1967 - Best Foreign Actor ("Bonnie and Clyde")

1982 - Best Actor (The Reds)

David di Donatello Award (1982):

Best Foreign Producer ("The Reds")

Venice Film Festival (1998):

Golden Lion for his contribution to world cinema

San Sebastian (2001):

Donostia Award for Outstanding Personal Achievement