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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An incredible read!, October 28, 2005
I read this book while wearing two hats. The first hat was my "settle down with a good book" hat, worn when I am just looking for a good story that I can pick up and put down and won't make me think too hard. But once I started with "Warren Beatty, A Private Man," I didn't want to put it down! I was absolutely fascinated by his beginnings -- the mix of Canadians and Virginians, the artistic bent that ran through the family, the disappointment of his father, etc. The author layered it so beautifully and painted such a clear picture of Beatty's childhood, I really felt I knew all of them personally. Warren and Shirley were kids I could easily have grown up with. And, ironically, I had a rather close (though non-romantic) friendship with Warren when we were both working on "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis." Unfortunately, there were times when I found it difficult to recognize the charming, amusing and polite young man I knew - and who Ms. Finstad captures so well --in the man who went on to become a Hollywood heartthrob and seemingly ruthless heartbreaker. All the pick-ups, the orgies, the conniving.... . And the difficult side of him when he started getting jobs, all the takes, mumbling, etc. Why would anyone hire him a second time? But I have to say he knew exactly how to deal with people who could help him advance. Although I admire people who work their way to the top (rather than having it handed to them), I found this particular side of Warren very unlikable.
My second hat, my writer's hat, was paying attention to the boundless research Ms. Finstad did, and was awed by the very real picture she painted of such a complicated man. I am familiar with research; my book, "The Tsar's Woman," required 15 years of poking through books, traveling to Russia, watching documentaries, etc. in order to get a handle on Russia's first tsar, Ivan IV, who became known as "Ivan The Terrible." I think she did an absolutely spectacular job, both in finding the man and explaining him to the reader in an easy, page-turning way.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
WB is still a private man, but we see glimpses of him in this book, October 28, 2005
Confession: I borrowed the book from the library, and do not own a copy.
I have always been fascinated by Warren Beatty, and the way he interpreted his movies. He is a considered thinker, and that comes across in all his movies (You might disagree with the way he interprets it, but he does put in a lot of thought into his projects.) I still have vivid recollections of "Red," and "Dick Tracy," is a movie that my husband watches quite often.
What this book revealed was how Beatty's childhood shaped his persona. This, I think is one of the strong glimpses that you get of Beatty, the private man. And this revelation perhaps helps you better understand the actor's personality.
An intelligent child with a musical gift (he played the piano), Beatty followed his sister Shirley McLaine's footsteps and joined the film industry. Most of the films he made were shaped by his interests and passions that date back to his childhood.
The book could have been condensed into a slimmer volume, and made it easier on the reader. But, other than that if you like reading biographies then this is a good one to read in your spare time.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Smells like Honey, April 23, 2006
It took me days to finish this book, and I'd say you get your money's worth by halfway through, and the rest is gravy. Oddly enough, however, the book feels a bit topheavy, so that the bulk of it is spent on Beatty's difficult period between meeting William Inge and making LILITH about four years later, and then all of a sudden the last 40 years are rushed through at a clippety clop.
WB isn't quite as entertaining as Suzanne Finstad's previous biorgaphy, the sublime NATASHA, which really did bring Natalie Wood alive again for her fans; and it's likely that the parts of the present book with the most emotional resonance are the years Beatty spent with Natalie, trying to cheer her up after Wagner betrayed her. Finstad does an admirable job of showing us the psychological underpinnings of Beatty's affairs with Joan Collins (almost persuading us that Collins is a real person, not just a glitzy British sex bomb--almost, but not quite), Natalie Wood, Leslie Caron, and Julie Christie. But when she gets down the list to Michelle Phillips, her pretense at analysis ends. She doesn't even try. I wonder if the book wasn't originally twice as long, and she was asked to curtail the later years into a series of briefer chapters. I mean, she could have written 100s of pages on Mary Tyler Moore and Isabelle Adjani, but instead they're reduced to ciphers.
As a boy, Beatty was enraptured by the original cast album of OKLAHOMA! by Rodgers and Hammerstein and Finstad successfully shows us that, subconsciously or not, Beatty succeeded again and again in replicating the Curly-Laurie romance in his own adult life.
It does seem as though Beatty was propelled to stardom by a clutch of gay visionaries including Inge and Tennessee Williams, and crypto gay figures like Joshua Logan, who signed Beatty to a personal contract and had him screen tested kissing Jane Fonda from morning to night. Inge wrote not only SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS, but A LOSS OF ROSES and ALL FALL DOWN for Beatty, and apparently never asked him for a thing in return. The stage production of A LOSS OF ROSES turned out to be a true nightmare of conflicted egos and desperate desires, what with Barbara Baxley threatening to jump off the cliffs of Malibu if replaced by Carol Haney, and Shirley Booth quitting on opening night. Joey Heatherton, the one and only, was also fired, thus setting the scene for a long and poignant second act that never quite came.
Would Joan Collins have been effective in the movie version of DH Lawrence's SONS AND LOVERS? Would Warren have succeeded playing Tony in WEST SIDE STORY? The book gives us crazy dreams of movies that might have been. Afdera Fonda, the former wife of Henry Fonda who dallied with Beatty briefly in 1963, said that he was "naughty, charming and playful. He smelled like honey, and he came and went like a shadow in the night."
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