Trivia

When he made his deal with Warner Bros. for Bonnie and Clyde (1967), the studio had such little faith in the future box-office results from the $2.5-million production that it agreed to give the film's star and first-time producer 40% of the box-office gross. The deal worked out quite well for Beatty. Between 1967-73 when the film played in theaters, it generated over $70 million worldwide at the box office, netting Beatty an estimated $28 million.

Rumored to have been the subject of Carly Simon's 1972 #1 hit single "You're So Vain." After 43 years of speculation, Simon finally confirmed in 2015 that the second verse of the song refers to Beatty. "Warren thinks the whole thing is about him!" she said.

Along with Robert Redford, Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson, Richard Attenborough and Kevin Costner, he is one of six people to win an Academy Award for "Best Director," though they are mainly known as actors.

Said that if they ever made a movie about his life story, Colin Farrell is the only person he thinks could play him.

He and Clint Eastwood are the only actor-directors to earn Best Actor and Best Director Oscar nominations for the same film two separate times.

Lives on famed "Bad Boy Drive" a.k.a. Mulholland Drive in Beverly Hills, CA. Nicknamed so because its famed residents are bad boy actors Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, and Beatty.

Has never directed or acted with his sister Shirley MacLaine in any films.

Based his Shampoo (1975) character "George Roundy" on celebrity hairdresser Jay Sebring.

Served as a pallbearer at the funeral of Senator John McCain.

John F. Kennedy wanted Beatty to play him in PT 109 (1963), after learning that director Elia Kazan had said that if anybody were to play JFK, it should be Beatty since they had so much in common. As Kazan stated, "Warren had everything Jack had: looks, intelligence, cunning and a commanding eye with the girls. Warren also suffered from lower back trouble." Kennedy himself suggested Beatty to Warner Bros to play him. Jack L. Warner asked Beatty to fly over to Washington to meet JFK and talk about the movie with him, but Beatty did not want to make the trip, nor play the part. He found the script too weak and that there was a surprising lack of action. His assessment turned out to be right: Cliff Robertson played the part and the movie flopped. Months later, JFK and Beatty met and Kennedy had to concede that Beatty's decision not to make the movie had been right. Beatty and Kennedy remained very good friends up until Kennedy's death in 1963. Coincidentally, Beatty and John Kennedy Jr. dated two of the same women: Daryl Hannah and Madonna. Beatty was also once linked to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, though in a 1998 interview he denied they ever consummated it. Christina Onassis, Jackie's stepdaughter from her post-widowhood marriage to Aristotle Onassis, dated Beatty as well.

Credited with founding the concept of a political fund-raising concert when he and girlfriend Julie Christie backed the "Together with McGovern" concert in 1972 featuring Barbra Streisand, Carole King, James Taylor and even reuniting Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel (Simon & Garfunkel).

His 40% of the box-office gross from Bonnie and Clyde (1967) netted him somewhere in the neighborhood of $28 million. The film played in theaters for six years. Based on the value of $28 million and its buying power in 1973, it would be the equivalent of having an estimated $150 million in 2016. This makes it one of the largest back-end deals for a movie star in Hollywood history.

Became close to Robert F. Kennedy during his 1968 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. Beatty's relationship with him was closer than the one Beatty had with John F. Kennedy. Beatty was particularly valuable during the campaign in firing up volunteers for such mundane activities as door-to-door canvassing. RFK was impressed by Beatty's thorough understanding of the issues. After Kennedy's assassination in Beatty's hometown of Los Angeles, he became a vocal gun control advocate.

Was the first choice to play Michael Corleone in The Godfather (1972), but he turned it down.

In his prime, Warren was almost as famous for his love life as he was for his movie-making, having been connected with a galaxy of female stars and starlets, a who's who list reported to include (in alphabetical order): Tracey Adams, Isabelle Adjani, Barbara Allen, Carol Alt, Eve Babitz, Diane Baker, Brigitte Bardot, Jaid Barrymore, Justine Bateman, Candice Bergen, Sallie Blair, Colleen Brennan, Bebe Buell, Maria Callas, Claudia Cardinale, Judy Carne, Leslie Caron, Cher, Greta Chi, Julie Christie, Connie Chung, Marina Cicogna, Pat Cleveland, Joan Collins, Janice Dickinson, Vikki Dougan, Nancy Dussault, Carole Eastman, Samantha Eggar, Britt Ekland, Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia, Morgan Fairchild, Jane Fonda, Charlene Gehm, Sandra Grant, Germaine Greer, Melanie Griffith, Dayle Haddon, Daryl Hannah, Barbara Harris, Goldie Hawn, Brooke Hayward, Joey Heatherton, Lillian Hellman, Christa Helm, Margaux Hemingway, Barbara Hershey, Elizabeth Hubbard, Lauren Hutton, Joyce Hyser, Iman, Kate Jackson, Bianca Jagger, Beverly Johnson, Christine Kaufmann, Diane Keaton, Christine Keeler, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Carole King, Bitten Knudsen, Sylvia Kristel, Diane Ladd, Jennifer Lee Pryor, Vivien Leigh, Tsipi Levine, Charlotte Lewis, Ali MacGraw, Elle Macpherson, Madonna, Phyllis Major, Carole Mallory, Princess Margaret, Diane McBain, Linda McCartney, Kelly McGillis, Marisa Mell, Robin Menken, Barbara Minty, Laura Misch Owens, Joni Mitchell, Sharon Mitchell, Constance Money, Mary Tyler Moore, Stacey Nelkin, Christina Onassis, Bernadette Peters, Michelle Phillips, Maya Plisetskaya, Juliet Prowse, Jeanne Rainer, Suze Randall, Vanessa Redgrave, Anne Reid, Diana Ross, Adrianne Sachs, Jessica Savitch, Diane Sawyer, Jean Seberg, Edie Sedgwick, Serena, Stephanie Seymour, Cynthia Sikes Yorkin, Carly Simon, Lori Singer, Susan Sontag, Inger Stevens, Stella Stevens, Alexandra Stewart, Susan Strasberg, Barbra Streisand, Annette Stroyberg, Dewi Sukarno, Twiggy, Kathleen Tynan, Liv Ullmann, Mamie Van Doren, Vanity, Diane von Fürstenberg, Veruschka von Lehndorff, Raquel Welch, Lana Wood and Natalie Wood. Notorious for his alleged "love 'em and leave 'em" treatment of many of these women, an aging Beatty had the tables turned on him by sultry supermodel Seymour, who unceremoniously dropped Warren in February 1991 to pursue Axl Rose of the rock band Guns N' Roses. Soon after that, he settled down with Annette Bening and they've been together ever since.

Beatty first espied future long-term lover Julie Christie at the 1966 Royal Command Performance of Born Free (1966) in London, which he attended with his then-girlfriend Leslie Caron. Caron and Beatty were situated near Christie in the reception line for Queen Elizabeth II, and Beatty first saw her in person when he turned to watch the Queen shake hands with her. Beatty inveigled his friend Richard Sylbert to tell her to call him. She did, he flew up to the San Francisco location of the Petulia (1968) shoot and, after a rocky start, they became lovers. She made her first public appearance with Beatty at a sneak preview of Bonnie and Clyde (1967) for the Hollywood elite. It took them several months to rid themselves of their then-current lovers before they came together in a committed relationship, although they usually maintained separate households for the length of their long romance. Most of those who knew them said they shared a passion for the truth. Beatty told his friends he had asked Christie to marry him, but she refused as she did not want children. While filming Shampoo (1975) in 1974, Beatty bought his dream house and brought Christie over to view it. When she realized he had already assigned several rooms as nurseries, it dawned on her that their ideas for the future were too far apart to be able to maintain their relationship. She ended her long affair with him by phone in the fall of 1974. His longest and most lasting relationship until he married Annette Bening, the mother of his four children, Beatty considered Christie his wife and told the press in 1971 that he would pay her alimony if they split up, if she wanted it. They did, but she didn't. When he was awarded the Irving Thalberg Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences in 2000, Christie was one of the friends and co-workers who appeared in a filmed tribute to him.

Turned down the role of Jack Horner in Boogie Nights (1997). He later said that it was one of the few choices in his career that he regretted. Burt Reynolds garnered an Academy Award nomination for his performance in the film. Ironically, Reynolds disliked the experience of working on the film, as has been well documented.

Despite their political differences, he is good friends with John McCain and Nancy Reagan. He was also a longtime friend of Ronald Reagan since his early career in Hollywood. As President, Reagan invited Beatty to screen his film Reds (1981) at the White House.

What's New Pussycat (1965), a name he often called girlfriends, was written for him, but he turned down the role when Leslie Caron--his main girlfriend at the time--was turned down by producers for the female lead.

His prolific intimate life is often cited as the reason he worked so little over the decades (23 movies in 55 years). At one point, he was allegedly making love to six women a day.

His political views expounded by the "new" Jay Bulworth in the movie Bulworth (1998) are really his own.

Cher on Beatty: Warren has probably been with everybody I know.

He has a photographic memory for phone numbers. He can dial a touch tone phone using the same hand technique as telephone operators.

Received ten offers of football scholarship after graduating from high school. He turned them all down.

Rejected Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) because he wanted to work with George Stevens on The Only Game in Town (1970). He turned down The Sting (1973) and The Great Gatsby (1974) so that he could devote his time to George McGovern's presidential campaign.

Lived off-and-on with Julie Christie from 1967 to 1974.

He has appeared in four films that have been nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Heaven Can Wait (1978), Reds (1981) and Bugsy (1991). He has also directed two Best Picture nominees: Heaven Can Wait and Reds.

He has appeared in two films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971).

Received the Irving Thalberg Memorial Award at The 72nd Annual Academy Awards (2000), presented to him by his friend and neighbor Jack Nicholson.

After coming to New York at 19 to pursue an acting career, he temporarily supported himself by working as a sandhog during the building of a new tube of the Lincoln Tunnel between New York and New Jersey.

A political liberal, he personally campaigned for South Dakota Senator George McGovern in the New Hampshire Democratic Presidential primary in 1972.

He is the godfather of Steven Bauer and Melanie Griffith's son, Alexander.

Britt Ekland on Beatty: He could handle a woman like a lift. He knew exactly where to locate the top button. One flick and we were on our way.

His two favorite cartoon characters are Daffy Duck (who is his all-time favorite) and Johnny Bravo.

Warren Beatty is still the only person in Academy Award history that was twice nominated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) as an actor, writer, director and producer of the same film (Heaven Can Wait (1978) and Reds (1981)). (2016)

Was offered the role of Richard Nixon twice in his career: with Oliver Stone in Nixon (1995) and with Ron Howard in Frost/Nixon (2008).

He directed seven different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Jack Warden, Dyan Cannon, Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Maureen Stapleton, Al Pacino and himself (in Heaven Can Wait (1978) and Reds (1981). Maureen Stapleton won an Oscar for her performance in Reds (1981).

Prominent women who claim to have rejected his advances include Barbara Windsor, Carmen Phillips, Gloria Steinem, Kathleen Turner, Kim Novak, Miriam Margolyes, Rosanna Arquette, Sally Kellerman, Tippi Hedren, Nadine Van der Velde, Sean Young, Victoria Rowell and Julie Newmar. Fran Drescher claims to have turned down an offer to join Beatty and Isabelle Adjani for a ménage à trois (mentioned in her autobiography).

Turned down the role of Bill in Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) because of the violent nature of the movie.

Was the original choice to play billionaire John Gates in Indecent Proposal (1993).

Turned down the leads in Walk on the Wild Side (1962), Act One (1963), Youngblood Hawke (1964), The Graduate (1967), Getting Straight (1970), Cabaret (1972), Blume in Love (1973), All That Jazz (1979), Splash (1984), Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), Misery (1990) and The Royal Tenenbaums (2001).

In the films he produces, he usually plays characters who lose something important by the end of the film.

Christopher Ciccone claimed in his memoir that he once found a suspicious Beatty rifling through the wastebasket in Madonna's home office at 3 a.m. looking for evidence she was cheating on him.

Diane Keaton and Mary Tyler Moore fought over him in the early 1980s. Beatty and Keaton were broken up but still seeing each other during his involvement with Moore, who lived in the same apartment complex as Keaton.

Children with Annette Bening: Kathlyn (b. January 8, 1992), Benjamin (b. August 23, 1994), Isabel (b. January 11, 1997) and Ella Beatty (b. April 8, 2000).

Daughter Kathlyn transitioned to male at the age of 14 and changed her name to Stephen Ira Beatty.

Turned down title role in the political comedy Dave (1993).

Along with Orson Welles, Laurence Olivier, Woody Allen, Kenneth Branagh, Clint Eastwood and Roberto Benigni, he is one of only seven men to receive Academy Award nominations for both Best Actor and Best Director for the same film: Welles for Citizen Kane (1941), Olivier for Hamlet (1948), Allen for Annie Hall (1977), Beatty for both Heaven Can Wait (1978) and Reds (1981), Branagh for Henry V (1989), Eastwood for Unforgiven (1992) and Million Dollar Baby (2004), and Benigni for Life Is Beautiful (1997).

In 1989, while working on Dick Tracy (1990), he came across a script titled "Ocean of Storms." It was a love story about an aging astronaut who rejoins the lunar program for another shot at glory and falls for a female astronaut. It was written by documentary producer Ben Young Mason and veteran writer, producer, director and actor Tony Bill. Beatty bought the script through his Mulholland Productions and set it up at 20th Century-Fox. He planned on producing and starring in this as his next project after he completed his commitments on Bugsy (1991). However, like most Beatty projects, it was stalled in development. By 1993, he was working with Annette Bening on Love Affair (1994) and was planning on making "Ocean of Storms" their next project. He was trying to convince Martin Scorsese to direct it and hired Wesley Strick to do a rewrite for Scorsese. Scorsese eventually passed on the project but Beatty continued to develop it over the years, with rewrites from a slew of screenwriters including Robert Towne, Lawrence Wright, Stephen Harrigan and finally Aaron Sorkin. By 1999 Clint Eastwood and Warner Bros. had beaten Beatty to the punch by announcing their own aging astronaut movie, Space Cowboys (2000). After the success of that film, and the box-office flops of both Love Affair (1994) and Bulworth (1998), Beatty and 20th Century-Fox decided to cancel their plans to make "Ocean of Storms.".

Tested for the role of Tony in West Side Story (1961).