He is a millionaire many times over but lives in two small, slovenly
kept hotel rooms. He travels with the fastest crowd in the country but
rarely drinks and never snorts or smokes. He is offered the best jobs
in his profession but turns most of them down. His idea of sin is to
eat ice cream. His idea of a great time is to talk on the phone. His
idea of heaven is to spend hours debating the pros and cons of
Proposition 13. He wears dirty jeans three days in a row, chews vitamin
pills and remembers everything. He makes coast-to-coast plane
reservations for six consecutive flights, then misses all of them.
Almost the only appurtenance consonant with his celebrity is an address
book Don Juan would envy. As one of his best friends puts it, “He can
be an idiot, and he can be brilliant. The thing is, whatever he does,
he does it bigger than the others do it. It’s his appetite. His
appetite is epic. He looks at the world, and there are things in it he
wants. There are things he must do. There are people he must have. His
appetite is enormous, and he has a wonderful time getting what he
wants.” The life-style may be odd, the methods unorthodox, but Warren Beatty
gets what he wants. And it almost invariably works —and sells. No
actor of his generation, not Redford or Nicholson, has been a star half
as long as Beatty has. Few in the film industry make as much money. No
one can do so many of the jobs required to create a successful film as
he. In the most visible function, acting, Beatty, unlike Travolta or De
Niro, began at the top. He has been a sensation ever since he first
appeared on the screen, in Splendor in the Grass, 17 years ago. He also revels in his life. Having no strong family ties, he goes
wherever he wants whenever he wants. Having no strong compulsion to
work, he takes off months to hop around the world, read, dabble in
politics and consort with beautiful and in teresting women. While other stars hang out with one
another in Malibu, Beatty moves and mingles with the “right” people. He
has had breakfast with Henry Kissinger in San Clemente and dined back
in town with Vladimir Horowitz. He has numbered among his friends the
likes of Lillian Hellman, Robert F. Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, George
McGovern and Jerry Brown. The countless women in his life have included
Natalie Wood, Julie Christie and his current flame, Diane Keaton. With all this going on, he might well show signs of wear, but at 41,
Beatty has the looks of a crown prince. He carries his 6-ft. 2-in.
frame like a youth of 20. Maybe there are a few crows’-feet around
Beatty’s bedroom eyes and a small bald spot, but these are minor
imperfections. When people lead charmed lives, they age remarkably
well. Explains Beatty’s friend, Screenwriter Robert Towne :
“People say you don’t learn from success but from your failures. Warren
learns from success.”
