The Sexiest Man Alive: A Biography of Warren Beatty [Hardcover]

Ellis Amburn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 23, 2002

The Sexiest Man Alive is the first in-depth biography of Warren Beatty, a man who blazed a trail of sex and high artistic achievement across the twentieth century as Hollywood matinee idol, founder of the New Hollywood with his groundbreaking Bonnie and Clyde, and international Don Juan.Through interviews with friends and associates, Ellis Amburn reveals new details about Beatty's well-known conquests and tells of many others that have not heretofore been reported, from early affairs with Joan Collins and Natalie Wood to encounters with such unknowns as a Playboy bunny and a young black student to such recent romances with Madonna and Annette Bening, the woman he finally married.

The notches on his belt read like a who's who of feminine beauty and power, making him the Casanova of the century. A partial list of his conquests include Jackie Kennedy Onassis, H.R.H. Princess Margaret, Barbara Harris, Lillian Hellman, Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia, Linda Eastman McCartney, Inger Stevens, Dewi Sukarno, Vanessa Redgrave, Jean Seberg, Susannah York, Brooke Hayward, Maria Callas, Julie Christie, Cher, Brigitte Bardot, Candice Bergen, Jessica Savitch, Connie Chung, Diane Sawyer, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, Barbara Streisand, Jane Fonda, Lana Wood, Leslie Caron, Diane Keaton, Michelle Phillips, Mamie Van Doren, Britt Ekland, Barbara Hershey, Goldie Hawn, Barbara Minty, Margaux Hemingway, Elle MacPherson, Dayle Haddon, Carol Alt, Sippi Levine, Isabelle Adjani, Kate Jackson, Justine Bateman, Robin Menken, Darryl Hannah, and Mary Tyler Moore.

Along the way, Amburn tells the exciting story of the young filmmakers who revolutionized Hollywood in the sixties and seventies, the people Warren knew and worked with, played with, sometimes made love with, and fought with -- Diane Keaton, Faye Dunaway, Julie Christie, Roman Polanski, Jack Nicholson, Hal Ashby, Robert Altman, Arthur Penn, Al Pacino, and Robert Evans.Amburn also explores Beatty's fascinating forays into Democratic politics -- his embattled relationship with Hubert Humphrey, how he wooed Barbra Streisand to raise millions for George McGovern, and the misadventure with Gary Hart, whose partying at Warren's bachelor pad -- and subsequent Donna Rice scandal -- some blame for his withdrawal from the 1988 presidential race.

The Sexiest Man Alive is one of the most sizzling, revealing books about Hollywood, weaving together the rich material of Warren Beatty's life and art.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Warren wants the entire world to go to bed with him, explains an unidentified friend of the actor's, and Amburn's book attempts to prove it through a voyeuristic cataloguing of Beatty's sexual episodes, until the pretense of a balanced biography dissolves into a series of personal attacks. Discussions of Beatty's dysfunctional childhood and rivalry with sister Shirley MacLaine are sandwiched between chatter about carnal exploits that allegedly range from Cher to Barbra Streisand and gossip about bad behavior, such as the time Beatty left Natalie Wood in a restaurant and ran off for a three-day interlude with a checkroom girl. Madonna, his co-star in Dick Tracy, emerges as a viciously competitive woman who denigrated Beatty's success, age and lovemaking. More interesting is the actor's relationship with critic Pauline Kael and the elaborate revenge he took on her for an unfavorable review. Jack Nicholson, King of Kink; Roman Polanski, seducer of underage girls; and jaded Hugh Hefner steam up several pages. Amburn (a former William Morrow editor) crucifies most of Beatty's movies, save Reds and Shampoo even Bonnie and Clyde gets dismissed as a shamelessly amoral glamorization of crime. Then, as if apologetic for a harshly one-sided portrait, the author praises Beatty for helping raise money after September 11 (Warren's heart, as it had been so often in his life, was in the right place), but this upbeat conclusion fails to remove the aftertaste of character assassination. 8 pages b&w photos.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Aspiring to plumb the depths of Beatty, Amburn spills the beans on the star's various romantic entanglements, political efforts, and creative endeavors, and he tries to evaluate it all. Here are moment-by-moment accounts of Beatty's trysts; for instance, the one with a young model, who saw him on the street, phoned him, and, somewhat to her surprise, was in his intimate company the same day. "She was on the brink of discovering what most women in the world wanted to know . . . exactly what Warren Beatty was like in bed and what he looked like" naked. Too much? Well, inquiring minds want to know and have wanted to know ever since Beatty played Dobie's got-rocks rival for Thalia Meninger (Tuesday Weld) on early TV's Dobie Gillis. Nevertheless, much attention is given to Beatty's career, but it has often been entangled with his amorous adventuring, so the latter are really unavoidable. A tasty look at the world of Warren; if not the last word, filled with interesting words. Mike Tribby
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: HarperEntertainment; 1st edition (July 23, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006018566X
• ISBN-13: 978-0060185664
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,408,685 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Informative and entertaining, August 2, 2002

By 

Coley Thomas (Salem, Virginia United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sexiest Man Alive: A Biography of Warren Beatty (Hardcover)

While this book doesn't exactly go deep into the mind of Warren Beatty, and probably castigates him too much for his sexual desires and the numberous paramours he has had, it's a great book about a truly enigmatic genius, who should go down as a much better actor, director, producer, and writer than he will ever be given credit for. While it details his difficult relationship with men, his sister, and the numerous women he has spent time with, it never gets to the core of Warren Beatty and what is truly on his mind. I have to give this book 5 stars because no one else has ever even come close, and this book makes a hell of a stab....Worth the time if you are a fan of Old Hollywood.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Execrable, October 2, 2002

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Sexiest Man Alive: A Biography of Warren Beatty (Hardcover)

Ellis Amburn continues his reign of biographical terror. In the same vein as his hideous Elizabeth Taylor biography, he now has penned the basic outline of the bedroom life of Warren Beatty, a guy whose teenage years extended well into his fifties. (Or until people stopped taking him seriously -- whichever came first)

It traces the career of Barbra Streisand's old schoolmate, an emotionally-needy Don Juan who went to bed with just about any woman he came across, married or single, famous or not. He remained a heartthrob in Hollywood for many years, reappearing with a bang and a flash when critics had declared his career dead. He dated women like Diane Keaton, Madonna, Michelle Phillips, and finally settled on Annette Bening, whom he married.

This book is less about Beatty's life than his bedroom life. We get extensive chronicling of, if not every woman he ever slept with, then quite a few of them. Most of these affairs add nothing either to the book or to our understanding of Beatty. And, as he did in "The Most Beautiful Woman In The World," Amburn is not satisfied merely to present Beatty's sexcapades: he does so for just about everyone else in the book. Madonna, Lara Flynn Boyle, Roman Polanski, and dozens of other people have their randy bedroom lives outlined in this book, usually with plenty of detail. Why? No reason. It makes for more titillating reading, I suppose. (The description of videotaped sex games by Sharon Polanski, who was stabbed to death while pregnant, and the first-person description of seduction of a thirteen-year-old, crossed the line into insensitive, tasteless, even pornographic)

The actual writing style is plodding and repetitive. Like many bad biographers, Amburn feels the need to spread anecdotes about the main personality traits of his subjects throughout the book. He repeats constantly on the predatory attitudes of Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty, or the strained relationship between Beatty and his sister Shirley MacLaine, or Madonna's liking for other women.

Perhaps the most unforgivable aspect of this book is the lack of insight into Beatty's mind. There are a few half-hearted attempts to explain why he tries to bed all these women, to the point of threatening to rape one girl and stalking another, but it's skimming the surface. Near the end of the book, he inexplicably decides to grow up and be responsible -- but by that time, the readers may be so disgusted by him that they will no longer care.

If you're hunting for a compendium of every tabloid article ever written about Warren Beatty, this is the book for you. But for a serious biography, look elsewhere.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Little Acting Ability, Minimal Personality, Morals Of A Jackrabbit.., August 27, 2005

By 

G. H. Giroux "Eccentric Writer" (Phoenix, AZ United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Sexiest Man Alive: A Biography of Warren Beatty (Hardcover)

So characterizes Warren Beatty, if one interprets this excessively detailed exploration of his life. Beatty's sexual exploits ad infinitum, and those of his fellow Hollywood comrades, male and female, should be enough for anyone to rip out their cable, never watch TV or go to a movie again, and retreat into the cultured world of literature. The shallowness of the last 50 years of movie celebrity is appalling, and continues today. I expected a tad more in-depth analysis and less randy ramblings, so although the book was well-detailed with the most minute information, that doesn't mean it was well done or as meaningful as it could have been. It did, however, verify my long-held opinion that Beatty's 'talent' was horribly overrated, and I never could figure out the mystique. I bought the book hoping to find a clue, but was disappointed. Perhaps it's simply the subject that is ultimately disappointing, and no amount of literary talent or research could hide that...