To some men, I seem to be what they would secretly like to be or are afraid of being. To some women I am that fantasy figure, that object of desire and/or fear. But none of it is me.? Warren Beatty. Despite his much publicised love life, Warren Beatty has always guarded his privacy zealously, giving few interviews and asking his friends not to talk about him to the press. But now acclaimed biographer Suzanne Finstad has been able to obtain unprecedented and candid interviews with friends such as Jane Fonda, Mike Nichols, Senators Gary Hart and George McGovern, as well as former lovers like Joan Collins and Leslie Caron, gaining access to rare photographs, letters and diaries. The result is a fascinating and intimate portrait of one of Hollywood?s key figures ? actor, director, writer, producer and, of course, legendary Lothario. Finstad describes Beatty's upbringing, revealing for the first time his remarkable family background, and the debt which both he and his older sister, actress Shirley MacLaine, owed to their "unrealized genius" parents. She insightfully examines his early struggles as a drama student and piano player in New York cocktail lounges, his complex relationship with his sister, and his romances with a series of iconic actresses from Joan Collins and Natalie Wood to Julie Christie, Diane Keaton, Isabelle Adjani, Madonna, and finally Annette Bening, the woman he married at 54, an event that made world headlines as "the end of an era." She also writes with skill about Beatty's career and his movies, from Splendour in the Grass, Bonnie and Clyde (the film that made him a legend), Shampoo, Heaven Can Wait and Reds to Dick Tracy and Bulworth, and the tenacity, passion and professionalism with which he pursued his goals as a producer and director, revealing a seriousness and intensity that belies the playboy image - the only person ever to have twice received five Oscar nominations for the same film. Now well into in his sixties, Beatty has, over the past decade, transformed himself into a model husband and father, a valued friend of power brokers both in and out of show business, a public figure whose strong political opinions have gained him admiration and dislike in equal measure, and, in the process, appears to have achieved an enviable tranquillity. Suzanne Finstad's stunning account of his extraordinary life is likely to remain the definitive version for years to come.