The Sexiest Man Alive : A Biography of Warren Beatty [BARGAIN PRICE] (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "WARREN BEATTY spent an unusually long period as a single man and didn't marry until he was in his mid-fifties..." (more)
Key Phrases: New York, Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson (more...)

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. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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 --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• ISBN-10: 006018566X
• ASIN: B0009W8LB4
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,808,824 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 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.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This Book Is Shallow And Meaningless, July 23, 2004

By	Jonathan - See all my reviews

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

I agree with other reviewers that the book is shallow, disjointed, rambling, and too dependent on magazine profiles.

I would like to add that it is weird of author Ellis Amburn to assert that Beatty started sleeping with Natalie Wood while she was still married to Robert Wagner and that said adultery is the real reason for the break-up of that marriage.

Amburn refutes the claim by Wood biographer Suzanne Finstad that Wood walked in on Wagner while he was in a compromising position with another man and that this event ended the marriage. Moreover, Amburn knows "for a fact" that Natalie Wood was bisexual and that she and Wagner had an agreement that either one could cheat with a homosexual partner, but not a heterosexual one. Therefore, Warren Beatty wrecked the marriage. Right. I hope Mr. Amburn stays away from Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Oh, and I wish Mr. Amburn had presented more of Warren Beatty's early childhood in Richmond, Virginia. Warren, born in 1937, and sister Shirley MacLaine, born in 1934, are the only movie stars from that small city. Supposedly the place was a totally segregated southern city that remained unusually calm and non-violent during the entire civil rights era. It's no Birmingham.

Nonetheless, maybe white boys in Richmond were forbidden to discuss sex and they were told that black people combined dirty sex with devil worship in their music? It would be interesting to know if Warren Beatty was socialized this way and if it shaped the brief career he had as a honky tonk pianist before he got his big break in Splendor In The Grass. Did it also shape his and Shirleys' ultraliberal politics and Warren's friendship with Ted Kennedy and Gary Hart? Her liaison with Bella Abzug?

(Shirley was politically active as far back as 1968 when she was a delegate to the notoriously violent Democratic convention in Chicago. To what extent did her experiences in Richmond motivate her to do such a thing? Does she feel genuine compassion for disfranchised people or does she prefer to spend her time with the supernatural? How much of those traits are in Warren? Does he enjoy the supernatural?)

This book ignores those issues. All it gives you is shallow name dropping and sex acts. Don't waste your time or money on it. The only good thing that could come out of this book is that it might motivate Warren Beatty to run for president in 2008. As part of his campaign platform he could say that people are so sick of hearing the shallow stories of his sex life and Bill Clinton's that they are ready to talk about the really important stuff for a change.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Is this a book?, April 2, 2008

By	P. Jewkes (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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

There's not a single thing in this book that digs even remotely into Warren Beatty's talent and gumption that have made him not one of the world's best actor but one of the greatest PRODUCERS the movies have ever seen. BONNIE & CLYDE, SHAMPOO, BUGSY, and REDS are landmarks. Instead, the book is about his sex life. Which, at this late date, is ancient history! Author Ellis Amburn spends plenty of time quoting vaguely identified "sources" and credits his research to time spent around famous people (from Shelley Winters to Christopher Isherwood). A badly written, name dropping collection of junk.