Department of Lady Killers
1999 September 6
Los Angeles Postcard
The war hero goes to Hollywood
By Ann Louise Bardach
How would Candidate Warren Beatty live down his love life?
By Ann Louise Bardach
When Warren Beatty was asked over the phone the other day how his plans to join the Presidential race were coming along, he declined to comment on whether he will run. "I think you'll find that this is not something that I have discussed with my friends," he said. That's perhaps the wisest course, since just about everyone among the clutches of industry tables at The Ivy, Orso, and Mortons in Los Angeles last week had an opinion to offer. There was a general feeling of giddiness that - after the Republican Party's success in mining studio back lots and coming up with comparatively low-grade thespians as candidates (Sonny Bono, Fred Thompson)- here, perhaps, was a star that liberal-Democratic Hollywood could be proud of. Most agreed that, when it comes to drugs, Beatty wouldn't encounter the same obstacles that George W. Bush has. The director Oliver Stone, who was at Yale with the Republican candidate, thinks that Beatty would have the edge on the issue. "Warren is a health nut. I don't think he has ever done a drug in his life," he mused. "Personally, I wish he had."
But, when it comes to sex, Beatty makes Bill Clinton look like the guy in the corner with the Hush Puppies and the bad case of dandruff at the junior-high sock hop. Beatty's exploits are legendary in a town where competition in the field is world-class, and his name has been romantically linked to some of the century's greatest beauties-Brigitte Bardot, Julie Christie, Isabelle Adjani, Natalie Wood, Vivien Leigh. "I'm pleased to say that I'm one of the few people Warren has never gone to bed with," the screenwriter Larry Gelbart declared." But I do think it's time we put a womanizer in the White House." Peter Bart, the editor of Variety, who refers to Beatty as "the Priapic Prince," recalled a game he used to play with the film star. "I would give him the name of a model or actress, and he would instantly shoot back her phone number," he said. "He could recall more than twenty numbers off the top of his head."
Hollywood wags don't seem to think that Beatty's reputation would work against him. For one thing, when Beatty was racking up his conquests (he is currently in a happy marriage and the father of three children) he was a single man and a movie star, not a married politician. But, more important, there's something about Beatty himself that makes people find his old antics, well cute. Fears that legions of bimbos might erupt with tell-all revelations in the event of a Beatty campaign are probably unfounded, according to some of his associates. Unlike Clinton, Beatty managed to keep many of his former inamoratas as devoted and loyal friends. Julia Phillips, the film producer turned Hollywood chronicler, said, "All the women I know who were involved with him were wild about him. He's a man who loves women-unlike some others I could name." The singer and actress, Michelle Phillips, who dated Beatty for three years in the mid-seventies, said, "He broke my heart to pieces. But women love him and women will vote for him, because he will romance them. He'll romance the whole country. Romance is his forte."
Beatty's marriage to Annette Benning has left some to ponder what might have been. Gelbart noted that "at one point the First Lady could have been anyone in 'The Players Guide.'" Another screenwriter pointed out, "I suppose we can be grateful to have escaped with out Madonna's being First Lady."
Others were sizing up their potential status under a Beatty Administration, "I think I deserve an ambassadorship," Michelle Phillips said, laughing. "Or I could be drug czarina." A publicist pointed out with pride that his client Joan Collins "would become First Ex-Fiancée." He went on, "She still has the engagement ring, incidentally. I don't know who broke up with whom, but they lived together for quite a few years. That was right after he ended things with Jane Fonda.”
Some, like Oliver Stone, see Beatty's roué reputation as an unequivocal asset. "I think it makes him more attractive," Stone says. "Like J.F.K., his hero."