Warren Beatty

Henry Warren Beatty was born on March 30, 1937, in Richmond, Virginia, the son of Ira Owens Beaty, a teacher, school administrator, and real estate worker who also pursued a PhD in educational psychology, and Kathlyn Corinne Beaty, a teacher originally from Nova Scotia. The family was Baptist, and during Beatty's childhood his father relocated them through several Virginia communities, including Norfolk, Arlington, and Waverly, before settling in the Dominion Hills section of Arlington, where Ira Beaty eventually took a position at Thomas Jefferson Junior High School in 1945. Beatty's older sister is actress, dancer, and writer Shirley MacLaine, who altered the phonetic spelling of their mother's maiden surname. His uncle by marriage was Canadian politician A.A. MacLeod.

As a child, Beatty developed an early interest in film, frequently accompanying his sister to movie theaters. Among the works that shaped him were the 1940 film The Philadelphia Story, which he saw during a 1950s re-release, and the 1939 romance Love Affair, starring Charles Boyer. He also became an admirer of the Texaco Star Theatre and learned to imitate its host comedian Milton Berle. His sister recalled him reading Eugene O'Neill and singing along to Al Jolson records. Beatty played football at Washington-Lee High School in Arlington and was reportedly offered ten college football scholarships upon graduation, but declined them to study liberal arts at Northwestern University from 1954 to 1955, where he joined the Sigma Chi fraternity. After one year, he left Northwestern and moved to New York City to study acting under Stella Adler at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, supporting himself through jobs including dishwasher, piano player, bricklayer's assistant, construction worker, and sandhog.

Beatty began his professional career in television, appearing on Studio One in 1957, Kraft Television Theatre in 1957, and Playhouse 90 in 1959. He was also a semi-regular on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis during its first season in 1959 and 1960. His sole appearance on Broadway came in 1959 with the William Inge drama A Loss of Roses, a production that earned him a 1960 Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Play and a 1960 Theatre World Award. In February 1960, he enlisted as an airman third class in the California Air National Guard at Van Nuys to fulfill his military service obligation, and was subsequently discharged due to a physical disability, remaining on inactive duty thereafter.

His film debut came in Elia Kazan's Splendor in the Grass in 1961, opposite Natalie Wood, for which he received a Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year as well as a nomination for Best Actor. He followed that with a series of films directed by major filmmakers of the era, including Tennessee Williams' The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone with Vivien Leigh, directed by Jose Quintero; All Fall Down with Angela Lansbury and Karl Malden, directed by John Frankenheimer; Lilith with Jean Seberg and Peter Fonda, directed by Robert Rossen; Mickey One directed by Arthur Penn; and Kaleidoscope directed by Jack Smight. In 1965, Beatty formed a production company called Tatira, named for his parents using his mother's nickname and his father's first name.

Over a career spanning more than six decades, Beatty accumulated 14 Academy Award nominations across four categories: Best Actor, Best Picture, Best Director, and screenplay. His acting nominations came for his portrayals of Clyde Barrow in the 1967 crime drama Bonnie and Clyde, a quarterback mistakenly taken to heaven in the 1978 sports fantasy Heaven Can Wait, journalist John Reed in the 1981 historical epic Reds, and gangster Bugsy Siegel in the 1991 crime drama Bugsy. He won the Academy Award for Best Director for Reds. He also directed, produced, and starred in the 1990 action crime film Dick Tracy, the 1998 political satire Bulworth, and the 2016 romance Rules Don't Apply, in which he played Howard Hughes. Additional notable films include Robert Altman's revisionist western McCabe and Mrs. Miller in 1971, Alan J. Pakula's political thriller The Parallax View in 1974, Hal Ashby's comedy Shampoo in 1975, and Elaine May's road movie Ishtar in 1987. In 1994, he produced and starred in a remake of Love Affair alongside his wife Annette Bening and Katharine Hepburn.

Beyond his Academy Award, Beatty received three Golden Globe Awards, the Irving G. Thalberg Award in 1999, the BAFTA Fellowship in 2002, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2007, and the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2008.