Where Has Warren Beatty Been?

For a certain kind of film fan, the ’70s are synonymous with Warren Beatty. After coming to fame alongside Faye Dunaway in 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde, Beatty became a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood, starring in prestige hits like Shampoo, and eventually writing and directing his own films. After a relatively quiet ’80s, Beatty staged a comeback with 1990’s Dick Tracy. But after a few years of activity during that decade, Beatty has been mostly quiet. So what has the man who was once Hollywood’s most eligible (and we do mean eligible) bachelor been doing in his twilight years?

The King of ’70s Cinema

Photo by Keystone/Getty Images

Born in 1937 into a family of teachers, Beatty is the younger brother of actress and Rat Packer Shirley MacLaine (pictured above in 1966). Leaving college after one year to study at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, Beatty began his career on TV, appearing on various shows, including The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. He began his film career with a Golden Globe-nominated role opposite Natalie Wood in 1961’s Splendor in the Grass.

After a run of quieter films, Beatty produced and starred in Bonnie and Clyde, picking director Arthur Penn and most of the cast himself. That 1967 tale of Depression-era bank robbers was not only a financial and critical success, it became considered an exemplar of the “New Hollywood” movement of young, countercultural filmmakers.

He also became famous in this era as a serial dater of fellow celebrities, and was spotted with everyone from Candace Bergen to Diane Keaton to Michelle Phillips. Carly Simon claimed that after telling her therapist about their relationship, the therapist replied, “You are not the first patient of the day who spent the night with Warren Beatty last night,” which pretty much sums it up. (Simon has also said that only the second verse of “You’re So Vain” is about him.)

Bonnie and Clyde (1967): Everett Collection

Building on Bonnie and Clyde’s success, Beatty starred in movies like 1971’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller and 1974’s  The Parallax View. But in 1975, he began his move towards writing and directing, co-writing 1975’s Shampoo, in which he also starred as a caddish hairdresser juggling multiple girlfriends. The film won him a Best Screenplay Oscar. Beatty got his first Best Director nomination in 1978 for the comedic fantasy Heaven Can Wait, which he also wrote and starred in. He then finally took home the trophy in 1981 for his film about political radicals in early 20th century America, Reds, which he also wrote and starred in.

Beatty’s Hollywood domination wound down in the ’80s, a decade when he made only two films — Reds, and 1987’s notorious box office flop, Ishtar. 1990’s Dick Tracy, which Beatty both directed and starred in as the title character, brought him a new wave of success (and a relationship with costar Madonna, which is awkwardly immortalized in her 1991 tour film, Truth or Dare). In pre-production for 1991’s Bugsy, Beatty met Annette Bening, who would soon become his wife, officially ending his playboy lifestyle. He would go on to star with Bening again in 1994’s Love Affair.

Bugsy (1991): Everett Collection

Beatty made a handful more films in the ’90s, most of which were poorly received or poorly attended — including the controversial 1998 film Bulworth, in which Beatty (who also directed and co-wrote) plays an aging, depressed senator who begins expressing himself by rapping. The film was nominated for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar, but failed at the box office.

Beatty Today

Beatty’s kept a fairly low profile in the 2000s, releasing only two movies: the 2001 comedy Town and Country, which was one of the largest financial failures in cinema history, and 2016’s Rules Don’t Apply, which he wrote, directed and starred in as Howard Hughes. Rules Don’t Apply was the end product of Beatty’s 40-year attempt to make a film about Hughes, but failed to make too much of an impact with audiences or critics.

In a 2016 interview with Vanity Fair — his first interview in 25 years — Beatty claimed that his Hollywood disappearing act was mostly due to fatherhood. He told the magazine:

Warren Beatty filming ‘Dick Tracy’ (1990): Everett Collection

In addition to raising his children, Beatty has also been engaged in a weirder activity: making Dick Tracy interview specials. 1990’s Dick Tracy was supposed to be the first film in a series, but legal battles between Beatty, Disney and Tribune Media (who publish the comic) prevented any further releases. The rights were eventually ruled in Beatty’s favor, with the caveat that he has to periodically produce Dick Tracy-related content to hold on to the copyright.

This has led to possibly two of the strangest specials to ever air on TCM. The first, entitled Dick Tracy Special, ran in 2010, and almost exclusively consists of Beatty, in character as Dick Tracy, being interviewed by Leonard Maltin. In the bizarre ensuing conversation, Beatty-as-Tracy credits his longevity to pomegranates, and complains at length about the 1990 film. It aired only once.

Hollywood 2022: Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for TCM

In 2023, TCM released the second special, Dick Tracy Zooms In, in which Beatty plays the character again, being interviewed via Zoom by Maltin and TCM host Ben Mankiewicz. After watching clips from previous Dick Tracy films (and the previous Dick Tracy Special), the trio are joined on Zoom by… Warren Beatty. Beatty-as-Tracy and Beatty-as-Beatty bicker about their relationship and the movie, discuss an interview Mankiewicz previously conducted with Beatty, and have a detailed discussion about the possibility of a grittier Dick Tracy movie or series in the future (with Tracy, somehow, producing).

Will it be Beatty’s final role? Given that the actor-director is currently 87 years old, it’s entirely possible. But given how many times we’ve assumed we’ve seen the last of Warren Beatty, it somehow still seems too soon to count him out.