Star

by Peter Biskind

3 “Even when he is saying nothing”: Lynn Hirschberg, “Film Star, Womanizer, Charmer, Man of the People. Warren Beatty for President,” The Observer Review Page, 5/17/98.

  3 “He’s one of the strangest”: Michael Sragow, “It’s About How Much Craziness You Have to Accept,” Salon, 8/19/99.

  4 “When he and I are standing”: AI, 11/19/06.

  7 “Women are like”: Confidential source.

  7 “You know that book”: Phone conversation, c. 2000.

  8 “is a game where the winner”: AI, 3/4/05.

  9 “master manipulator”: AI, 12/7/94.

  10 “How can you not hate a guy”: AI, n.d.

  1. A STAR IS BORN

  page

  13 Epigraph: Fiona Macdonald Hull, “Warren’s Women,” News of the World, 9/10/78.

  14 “Hollywood was candy land”: AI, 4/14/06.

  14 “No matter how hot”: Confidential source.

  14 “My childhood was”: James Spada, Shirley and Warren, New York, 1984, p. 4.

  15 “That boy who’s looking”: Joan Collins, Past Imperfect, Boston, 1978, p. 232.

  15 “I really thought I was hot shit”: AI, 10/2/91.

  15 “I thought he was gay”: AFI Life Achievement Award, 6/12/08.

  15 “Look, are you afraid”: Jeff Cronin, “Beatty and the Two Beauties,” Photoplay, 12/61.

  15 “Cut! Stop!”: Ibid.

  15 “Oh my God”: AI, 10/2/91.

  16 “nothing would stop him”: AI, 6/7/92.

  16 “Hi, did you get”: Collins, Past Imperfect, p. 236.

  16 “I can hardly wait”: Ibid.

  17 “I’m coming up”: Ibid., p. 238.

  17 “I don’t think”: Ibid., p. 250.

  17 “Maybe he did”: Graham Lord, “The Fastest Lady in Hollywood,” London Daily Mail, 8/20/07.

  18 “Warren was 21”: Ginny Dougary, “Wicked Lady,” London Times Magazine, 10/27/01.

  18 “When I got out here”: AI, n.d.

  18 “He’d come home drunk”: Shirley MacLaine, My Lucky Stars: A Hollywood Memoir, New York, 1996, p. 7.

  18 “Can Warren talk medicine?”: AI, 6/7/94.

  19 “I saw you necking”: Collins, Past Imperfect, p. 243.

  19 “I remember the morning”: Shirley MacLaine, Don’t Fall Off the Mountain, New York, 1971, p. 16.

  19 “Warren and I might have believed”: MacLaine, My Lucky Stars, p. 18.

  20 “A friend of mine”: AI, 10/2/91.

  20 “I needed money”: Howard Smith, “Beatty Raps,” Eye, c. 1968.

  21 “A friend of mine”: AI, n.d.

  21 ‘Where ya going?’: AI, 10/1/91.

  22 “Here comes Mr. Broadway”: Beatty, AI, n.d.

  22 “Criticized Warren”: Rita Gam, Actors, A Celebration, New York, 1988, p. 227.

  22 “Warren always wanted”: AI, 4/6/05.

  22 “weighty,” not “Wheaties”: John Parker, Warren Beatty: The Last Great Lover of Hollywood, New York, 1993, p. 70.

  23 “Inge was in love” and following: Ellis Amburn, The Sexiest Man Alive, New York, 2002, pp. 5, 21.

  23 “How smart of Warren”: AI, 3/1/05.

  23 “I liked Warren”: Jeff Young, Kazan: The Master Director Discusses His Films, New York, 1999, p. 255.

  23 “wanted it all”: Elia Kazan, A Life, New York, 1988, p. 603.

  24 “There was this period”: AI, 6/11/94.

  24 “They say that fighters”: Washington Post, 1980.

  25 “he feels a wreath”: Suzanne Finstad, Warren Beatty: A Private Man, p. 190.

  25 “I thought, I gotta”: AI, 10/2/91.

  25 “You can’t do a play”: Spada, Shirley and Warren, p. 32.

  26 “Warren won’t listen”: Rex Reed, “Will the Real Warren Beatty Please Shut Up,” Esquire, 8/67.

  26 “Warren kept me”: “The Return of a Sexual Pioneer,” Toronto Star, 8/26/06.

  26 “Don’t go, Butterfly”: Collins, Past Imperfect, p. 248.

  26 “changed lines”: Reed, “Will the Real Warren Beatty Please Shut Up,” Esquire, 8/67.

  26 “was written to”: AFI seminar, moderated by Jon Avnet, 5/14/09.

  26 “In my forty-year career”: Parker, Warren Beatty, p. 47.

  27 “sensual around the lips”: Kenneth Tynan, The New Yorker, 12/12/59.

  27 “mercurial, sensitive, excellent”: Spada, Shirley and Warren, p. 36.

  27 “There’s no more”: AI, 10/18/91.

  27 “The New York theater’s”: Spada, Shirley and Warren, p. 36.

  27 “I said ‘Oh this is lovely’”: Jackie Collins, quoted by Scott Haller, reported by David Wallace, “Scenes from a Sisterhood; Joan and Jackie Collins Turn Sex and Passion into a Family Plot,” People, 11/12/84.

  28 “part of the reason”: Victor Navasky, Naming Names, New York, 1980, p. 204.

  28 “Kazan was a pariah”: AI, 6/29/05.

  29 “We were taught”: MacLaine, Don’t Fall Off the Mountain, pp. 1–2.

  29 “I went through”: Younge, “Rebel with a Cause.”

  30 “Her mother was”: AI, 3/1/05.

  30 “When they were sober”: AI, 4/6/05.

  30 “When Natalie was first suggested”: Young, Kazan, pp. 258–59.

  30 “When I saw her”: Kazan, A Life, p. 602.

  30 “good girl”: Ibid., p. 603.

  30 “I saw a screen test” and following: Beatty, AI, 10/2/91.

  31 “Pregnant?” and following: Collins, Past Imperfect, p. 251.

  32 “I desperately wished”: Hull, “Warren’s Women.”

  32 “Kazan said to me” and following: AI, 4/6/05.

  32 “scared and worried”: Howard Thompson, “Inge’s Kansas Through a Kazan

  Kaleidoscope,” New York Times, 5/22/60.

  32 “I suppose I have a method”: Cosmopolitan, 1962.

  33 “a spectacular disappointment”: MacLaine, Don’t Fall Off the Mountain, pp. 9–10, 11.

  33 “didn’t like good looking guys”: Richard Schickel, Elia Kazan, New York, 2005,

  p. 376.

  33 “turkey neck”: Glenn Gordon Caron, AI, 5/31/07.

  33 “Just shut up”: AI, 8/25/92.

  33 “Lemme ask you something”: Beatty, Schickel, Elia Kazan, p. 376.

  33 “In some patricidal attempt”: Holly Millea, “The Revolutionary,” Premiere,

  11/06.

  33 “What did you say?”: Schickel, Elia Kazan, p. 377.

  33 “the terrible effect” and following: Millea, “The Revolutionary.”

  34 “I like the title”: AI, 10/2/91.

  34 “does not rebel” and following: Schickel, Elia Kazan, p. 378.

  34 “It was never consummated” and following: AI, 4/16/93.

  34 “Warren was a little”: Kazan, A Life, p. 603.

  35 “The enemy”: Finstad, Warren Beatty, p. 237.

  35 “Warren was a pain”: Suzanne Finstad, Natasha, New York, 2001, p. 257.

  35 “I’m the vainest” and following: Confidential source.

  36 “I was not about”: Collins, Past Imperfect, p. 260.

  36 “Their marriage was crumbling”: AI, 4/20/05.

  36 “It was clear to Natalie”: Kazan, A Life, pp. 602, 603.

  36 “If they were kissing”: AI, 4/20/05.

  36 “Beatty had nothing”: Robert J. Wagner, with Scott Eyman, Pieces of My Heart, New York, 2008, p. 136.

  37 “I would have known”: AI, 12/5/08.

  37 “There’s a lot”: Beatty, AI, 10/2/91.

  37 “Here comes MA”: Finstad, Natasha, p. 258.

  37 “She had great disdain”: AI, 4/20/05.

  37 “Warren wasn’t coming through”: Finstad, Warren Beatty, p. 239.

  37 “Absolutely beautiful” and following: Collins, Past Imperfect, p. 266.

  38 “pimply, bespectacled”: Ibid., p. 272.

  38 “I’m terribly sloppy”: Cronin, Photoplay, “Beatty and the Two Beauties,” 12/61.

  38 “I think [Warren] hides”: George Christy, “Queen of the Tiny
Screen: Joan Collins,” Interview, 9/1/84, pp. 84–90.

  39 “During that time”: Nigel Parndale, Sunday Telegraph Magazine, 10/17/04.

  39 “My first Hollywood party” and following: AI, 10/1/91.

  39 “Could I talk?”: Avnet, AFI Seminar.

  39 “So I went over”: Ibid.

  40 “I was so stupid”: Ibid.

  40 “He chased way more”: AI, 4/27/05.

  41 “They spoke”: AI, 11/9/00.

  41 “Charlie’s patio was always”: AI, n.d.

  41 “As nearly as I”: AI, 12/11/00.

  41 “turned out to be”: AI, 12/11/00.

  41 “Charlie taught Warren”: AI, 5/12/93, 5/2/00.

  42 “Warren never answers”: AI, 2/27/94.

  42 “I wanted to play”: AI, 10/2/91.

  43 “What’s going to happen” and following: Gavin Lambert, AI, 3/4/05.

  43 “I said to myself” and following: AI, 1/14/06.

  44 “I put on a bathrobe”: AI, 10/2/91.

  44 “Tennessee was very”: AI, 3/4/05.

  44 “He is so beautiful”: Peter Evans, “So What Finally Tamed the Great Seducer?,” London Daily Mail, 4/4/07.

  44 “He didn’t say”: AI, 3/4/05.

  44 “devastatingly handsome”: Collins, Past Imperfect, p. 282.

  45 “Like most women”: Reed, op. cit.

  45 “They were at it”: Evans, “So What Finally Tamed the Great Seducer?”

  45 “I knew Lenya”: AI, 3/4/05.

  45 “I don’t think”: Ibid.

  45 “It was a mess”: Michael Wilmington and Gerald Peary, “Interview with Warren Beatty,” Velvet Light Trap, #7, Winter, 1972/73.

  45 “It was the high tide”: AI, n.d.

  45 “charming and intelligent” and following: Susan Strasberg, Bittersweet, New York, 1980, pp. 120–21.

  46 “who could get to the mirror”: Parndale, Sunday Telegraph Magazine.

  46 “It’s crap”: Collins, Past Imperfect, p. 289.

  46 “It was obvious”: Finstad, Warren Beatty, p. 262.

  47 “silent, studious”: Lana Wood, Natalie: A Memoir by Her Sister, New York, 1984, p. 64.

  47 “The way Natalie Wood”: Wagner, Pieces of My Heart, p. 141.

  47 “I wanted to kill”: Ibid., p. 142.

  47 “Even as a kid”: Spada, Shirley and Warren, p. 4.

  48 “an astonishing campaign”: John Houseman, Unfinished Business, New York, 1972, p. 401.

  48 “almost against [his] will”: Ibid.

  48 “Our most serious problem”: Ibid., p. 401.

  48 “I said, ‘Oh?’”: AI, 4/6/05.

  49 “Our veteran cameraman” and following: Houseman, Unfinished Business, p. 401.

  49 “The press has”: AI, n.d.

  49 “a frank and ferocious”: Bosley Crowther, The New York Times, 10/11/61.

  50 “should make the big”: Time, 10/13/61.

  50 “Andy Hardy story” and following: Ralph F. Voss, A Life of William Inge, Lawrence, Kansas, 1989, p. 196.

  50 “Oh my God, you’re”: Mark Harris, Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood, New York, 2008, p. 21.

  50 “I hate to bother you” and following: Finstad, Warren Beatty, p. 277.

  51 “What I liked”: Michel Ciment, New York, 1974, p. 139.

  51 “‘I’d like to tell”: Ciment, Kazan on Kazan, p. 139.

  51 “Number One would like”: Gavin Lambert, Natalie Wood, New York, 2004,

  p. 188.

  51 “Mr. Beatty… is”: Spada, Shirley and Warren, p. 66.

  52 “It was much”: Jack Nicholson, AI, 1990.

  52 “When I was 16”: Eugenie Ross-Leming, “Playboy Interview,” Playboy, 12/1/88.

  52 “Everyone in this story”: Reed, op. cit.

  52 “Bosley Crowther has never”: Spada, Shirley and Warren, p. 66.

  52 “Warren Beatty, whose”: Stanley Kaufman, The New Republic, 4/23/62.

  52 “preferred to play golf”: AI, 1989.

  53 “The White House had asked” and following: AI, 6/11/94.

  53 “crap”: AI, 1989.

  53 “I was not prepared for it”: Ibid.

  54 “blended into a series”: Reed, op. cit., p. 83.

  54 “I realized that she”: AI, 10/31/97.

  55 “Society considers the person”: “Lessons Learned in Combat: Interview with Robert Rossen,” Cahiers du Cinéma in English, #7, 1/67.

  55 “the plight”: AI, 10/2/91.

  56 “When he said,” and following: AI, 9/8/05.

  2. ALL FELL DOWN

  page

  58 Epigraph: Roger Ebert, “Warren Beatty and Julie Christie and the Map to Presbyterian Church,” Chicago Sun Times, 8/1/71.

  58 “Natalie would lie”: Lana Wood, Natalie: A Memoir by Her Sister, p. 64.

  58 “After a few hours”: Ibid., p. 63.

  59 “Natalie was a lightweight”: AI, 5/26/93.

  59 “My impression was”: AI, 3/4/05.

  59 “The morning of the day”: AI, 4/6/05.

  60 “Natalie told me”: AI, 3/4/05.

  60 “Warren goes through”: Peter Evans, “So What Finally Tamed the Great Seducer?”

  60 “At the outset”: Cahiers du Cinéma in English, #7, 1/67.

  61 “If the director was indecisive”: Time, 7/3/78.

  61 “I hired you because”: Finstad, Warren Beatty, p. 301.

  61 “Beatty was extremely difficult” and following: AI, 5/15/05.

  61 “I was intimidated”: Stanley Paley, “The Shooting of Lilith” Art Films International, 4/1/64.

  61 “Warren Beatty’s behavior”: David Richards, Played Out: The Jean Seberg Story, New York, 1981, p. 137.

  61 “because we all”: AI, 7/25/09.

  61 “I’ve read Crime and Punishment”: Paul Gardner, The New York Times,

  7/21/63.

  61 “Warren was a man”: AI, 8/25/92.

  62 “I don’t think that anybody” and following: AI, 5/15/05.

  62 “She got him”: AI, 7/25/09.

  62 “Peter was running around”: AI, 5/15/05.

  62 “psychotic”: Wilmington and Peary, “Interview with Warren Beatty.”

  62 “When he came”: Jean Seberg, “Lilith and I,” Cahiers du Cinéma in English, #7, 1/67.

  63 “From day one”: AI, 5/15/05.

  63 “At the end of the filming”: Seberg, “Lilith and I.”

  63 “If I die”: Muriel Davidson, “Public Image vs. Private Man,” 1970.

  63 “Beatty probably contributed”: AI, 5/15/05.

  63 “Warren’s vision”: AI, 4/9/93.

  63 “Hollywood was a closed club” and following: AI, 1/12/93.

  64 “I found him”: AI, 6/29/05.

  64 “to push American movies”: Time, 10/8/65.

  64 “I don’t understand” and following: Penn, AI, 1990.

  64 “That didn’t particularly fly”: Penn, AI, 6/29/05.

  64 “It’s too fucking obscure”: Richard Porton, “An Interview with Arthur Penn,” Cineaste, 12/93.

  65 “All the time, everywhere” and following: AI, 4/26/94.

  66 “Warren used to”: AI, 4/9/92.

  66 “Stanley was the”: AI, 4/9/92.

  67 “It was like lightning” and following: Dick Sylbert, AI, 6/7/94.

  67 “I was struck”: George Gordon, “You Can’t Beat Beatty,” London Daily Mail, 3/14/94.

  67 “We practically did not leave”: Aaron Latham, “Warren Beatty Seriously,” Rolling Stone, 4/1/82.

  68 “My tiredness, her anxieties”: Peter Hall, Shaun Usher, “Passion Plays,” London Daily Mail, 9/6/93, from Making an Exhibition of Myself, London, 1993.

  68 “Mickey One 1/2”: AI, 8/25/92.

  68 “Movies didn’t have”: AI, 6/29/05.

  69 “We had a lot of trouble”: Wilmington and Peary, “Interview with Warren Beatty.”

  69 “Nobody’s going”: Beatty and Penn, Projections 4, 1994, p. 125.

  69 “I felt th
ey were pretentious”: Wilmington and Peary, “Interview with Warren Beatty.”

  69 “At that stage”: AI, 6/29/05.

  69 “He doesn’t like”: “Penn on Penn,” Projections 4, p. 125.

  69 “a certain flamboyance” and following: AI, 6/29/05.

  70 “Oh, she’s wonderful”: AI, 6/29/05.

  70 “‘Yes, I was having’”: Rebecca Hardy, “My Passion for Beatty Killed My Marriage,” London Daily Mail, 1/27/93.

  70 “I didn’t blame”: Hall and Usher, “Passion Plays.”

  70 “Wonder why we hate ourselves”: Harris, Pictures at a Revolution, p. 51.

  71 “In the original script”: AI, 6/11/94.

  71 “a lovable guy”: Harris, Pictures at a Revolution, p. 40.

  71 “You seem to forget”: Charles Feldman, Feldman Collection, AFI Library.

  72 “for the past two weeks”: Roderick Mann, “I want so much out of life, says Leslie Caron”, Los Angeles Times, 6/14/64.

  72 “When you’re falling in love”: Quoted by Robert Younger, AI, 10/22/07.

  73 “Warren said, ‘Charlie’”: AI, 5/12/93.

  73 “I finally walked out”: AI, 10/2/91.

  73 “I diva’ed my way”: Harris, Pictures at a Revolution, pp. 86–87.

  73 “Woody was very unhappy”: AI, 10/2/91.

  74 “a muddy performance”: Crowther, The New York Times, 9/21/64.

  74 “I needed some confirmation”: Gary Arnold, “So Much in Common; Beatty Shows ‘Love Affair’ Includes Kids and Friends as Well as Movie,” Washington Times, 10/23/94.

  75 “he told me I was”: Lana Wood, Natalie, p. 66.

  75 “Warren’s coming over”: Mart Crowley, AI, 4/6/05.

  75 “raised voices” and following: Lana Wood, Natalie, p. 110.

  76 “It was just a miracle” and following: AI, 4/6/05.

  76 “Nothing happened”: Gavin Lambert, Natalie Wood, New York, 2004, p. 217.

  76 “I saw him about two months” and following: AI, 4/6/05.

  77 “Maybe seeing Warren”: AI, 3/4/05.

  77 “In ten seconds”: Henry Jaglom, AI, 2/1/08.

  78 “It was a very upsetting period”: Curtis Lee Hanson, “An Interview with Warren Beatty,” Cinema, v. 3, no. 5, Summer, 1967.

  78 “He had this ability”: AI, 6/14/94.

  78 “Bob was an extraordinarily”: AI, 11/5/96.

  78 “He set up a meeting”: AI, 3/3/94.

  79 “They were so intimate”: AI, 6/14/94.

  79 “Towne was like this shadow”: AI, 12/7/94.

  79 “He was great”: Terry Gilliam, AI, 4/3/09.

  80 “Am I to assume”: Harris, Pictures at a Revolution, p. 92.