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Warren Beatty was born on March 30, 1937 in Richmond, Virginia. In 1962, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association awarded Beatty the Most Promising Newcomer Award. Rarely has anyone lived up to the title so brilliantly--and so often. He made his film-acting debut in 1961's "Splendor in the Grass," and instantly became one of the screen's most charismatic stars. He made his producing debut with 1967's "Bonnie and Clyde," in which he also starred, and created a milestone in American film. He made his writing debut with 1975's "Shampoo," which he also produced and starred in, and fashioned a wistful and iconic portrait of American culture. He made his directing debut with 1978's "Heaven Can Wait," which he also produced, wrote, and starred in, and was nominated for four Academy Awards.
Has anyone else ever held such a prominent, influential place in front and behind the camera--or so thoroughly captivated the imagination of the film-going public for four decades--with just 22 films? Part of Beatty's success, of course, is due to that inexplicable star quality which a lucky few happen to possess. A lot of it, though, has to do with the extraordinary range and depth of his work. There are the early career-making dramas ("Splendor in the Grass," "Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone," "All Fall Down," "Lilith," "Mickey One") that established him as his generation's leading interpreter of sensitive, brooding, troubled young men. But since then he has starred in or created films--some of them among the most honored motion pictures ever--in an impressive array of genres: romantic comedy ("Heaven Can Wait," "Shampoo"), heist adventure ("Kaleidoscope," "$"), gangster picture ("Bonnie and Clyde," "Bugsy"), revisionist western ("McCabe & Mrs. Miller"), paranoid thriller ("The Parallax View"), historical epic ("Reds"), comic book adaptation ("Dick Tracy") and political satire ("Bulworth").
A measure of his range as a film artist is that Beatty personally has been nominated for 15 Academy Awards, spread out over four categories and six films: "Bonnie and Clyde" (producer, actor), "Shampoo" (co-writer with Robert Towne), "Heaven Can Wait" (producer, actor, director, co-writer with Elaine May), "Reds" (producer, actor, writer), "Bugsy" (producer, actor), "Bulworth" (co-writer with Jeremy Pikser). In 1982, he was awarded the Oscar for Best Director for "Reds."
"Every project and every performance is different," writes Stephanie Zacharek on Salon.com. "His [Beatty's] restlessness is his driving force. His overall sense of vision and his distinct and radical guiding sensibility [have] fueled his ambitions and inspired a remarkable and uncompromising slate of mainstream movies."
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