Product Description

“Whatever you have read or heard about me through articles or gossip, forget it. I am nothing like that Warren Beatty. I am nothing like what you have read.” —Warren Beatty

Warren Beatty guarded his privacy even before he became a movie star, when he burst onto the screen in 1961 as the earnestly handsome all-American boy in Splendor in the Grass. When he started acting, Beatty kept secret the fact that actress Shirley MacLaine, already a star, was his older sister. Over time, he has cultivated a mystique, giving few interviews and instructing others not to talk about him. Until now.

Through years of groundbreaking research, lauded biographer Suzanne Finstad gained unprecedented access to Beatty’s family, close friends, and film colleagues, including such luminaries in the arts and politics as Jane Fonda, Goldie Hawn, Leslie Caron, Robert Towne, Mike Nichols, and Senators John McCain, George McGovern, and Gary Hart. Weaving hundreds of these candid interviews, photographs from private albums, personal letters, diaries, and the previously unpublished papers of the late Natalie Wood and mentors such as directors Elia Kazan and George Stevens, playwrights Clifford Odets and William Inge, and agent Charles Feldman, Warren Beatty unveils the real Beatty—a complex, sensitive visionary torn between the “fairly puritanical, football-playing boy” from Virginia and his Hollywood playboy image.

Finstad paints a rich, fascinating portrait of the secretive film legend, taking us back to the “unrealized genius” parents who molded arguably the most famous brother and sister in Hollywood history, tracing the family influences and events in Beatty’s past that directly inspired McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Shampoo, Heaven Can Wait, Reds, Ishtar, Dick Tracy, Bugsy, Love Affair, and Bulworth, and led to his political activism, culminating in a near-bid for the White House. Finstad constructs the definitive, myth-shattering account of Beatty’s evolution from Hollywood’s enfant terrible to producer of the revolutionary Bonnie and Clyde, launching him as the premier actor/director/writer/producer of his generation, the only person to twice earn Oscar nominations in all five major categories.

Here also is the truth about Beatty the lover, setting the record straight on his storied relationships with such iconic actresses and beauties as Jane Fonda, Joan Collins, Natalie Wood, Leslie Caron, Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn, Michelle Phillips, Diane Keaton, Isabelle Adjani, and Madonna. Finstad’s astute insights illuminate Beatty’s private struggle to attain happiness, his complicated bond with his sister, Shirley, and the deeper reasons why, at fifty-four, the archetypal bachelor married actress Annette Bening.

Stunningly researched, engrossing, and exquisitely detailed, Warren Beatty: A Private Man gives us a new understanding of the enigmatic, fiercely intelligent star who embodies the American dream.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2064578 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-04
• Released on: 2005-10-04
• Format: Large Print
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 960 pages

From AudioFile
Finstad has achieved a dynamic, dramatic, yet poignantly sensitive bio of a Hollywood superstar. Dylan Baker delivers the book, not as an actor, but as an unbiased reporter, yet he vividly recounts Beatty's childhood with his sister, actress Shirley MacLaine; his struggles to become a movie star, producer, and director; his legend as a ladies' man; and his marriage at age 54. Baker's clean, clear reportage deftly uses interviews with Beatty's friends, colleagues, and lovers, as well as excerpts from diaries, letters, and family papers, while supporting it all with a fifty-year history of film-making. The audiobook bonus is an added treasure of intimacy: off-the-cuff conversations with Beatty himself, Joan Collins, and others. M.T.B. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Review
"Compelling . . . Finstad's admiring portrait of the actor is rooted in his childhood . . . and the background was especially remarkable . . . because it also produced Beatty's talented and fascinating sister Shirley MacLaine. . . Beatty's life has something to teach people about eluding fame's snares." —Deirdre Donahue, USA Today

"One of the six must-reads for fall . . . you must read it because this is the first serious biography of the enigmatic actor-writer-producer-director and legendary lover boy, and it provides a detailed look into the conservative Southern childhood that shaped and motivated him." —Cox News Service

"For nearly 600 pages of interesting and thoughtful prose, Finstad follows Beatty as he slaloms, sometimes graciously, sometimes like Niccolo Macchiavelli, through one of civilization's most treacherous proving grounds, the movie business." —David Gilmour, Toronto Star

"Finstad, an excellent, sympathetic writer, goes a long way here to explain the mysterious, often monosyllabic Warren . . . Finstad, who wrote the haunting and controversial Natalie Wood bio Natasha, packs her Beatty book with exclusive interviews and info on all things Warren . . . this is a fascinating look at a man who has lived a public life without selling his soul to that public." —Liz Smith, New York Post

From the Back Cover
Praise for Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood

“Gripping . . . Finstad offers a sad, penetrating portrait that juxtaposes the storybook myth . . . and the real story.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Heartstopping.” —Toronto National Post

“Suzanne Finstad presents a poignant, intensely sympathetic portrait of the vulnerable, sensitive little girl who grew up to be the quintessential Hollywood star.” —Los Angeles Times

“[Natasha] helps us reach what certainly seems to be a clearer understanding of a woman . . . who was even more interesting, appealing, and vulnerable in private than on the screen.” —Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post