Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, October 21, 1994 TAG: 9412210061
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: HILLEL ITALIE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Long
``Is that for you?'' Beatty asks the reporter interviewing him.
No.
``I'll have it,'' he says quickly.
But someone else ordered that salad.
``I'll have it anyway.''
Beatty lifts off the lid from the plate, turns around and asks the waiter to bring up some raisin rolls. By the time they arrive, about 20 minutes later, the salad is half-finished and the topic has shifted to Beatty's own past, which he finds far less useful to explore.
``There's no point in looking back, because you don't know what brought you to here. HERE is the only important moment,'' he declares, pointing to the food in front of him.
The salad?
``That's in the past,'' he says, reaching for a roll and holding it up.
``THIS is now.''
Both on and off the screen, Beatty long has been famous for knowing exactly what he wants, until something better comes along. He's an icon of the sexual revolution who brought an uninhibited spirit to movies such as ``Shampoo'' and ``Bonnie and Clyde.''
For years, this actor-writer-director-producer saw the press as just another commitment to avoid, a waste of time that only diverted attention from his movies.
Now, he thinks interviews are unavoidable, part of the same mass distribution system that seems to have made talkers out of such once-silent stars as Beatty, Woody Allen and Robert De Niro.
``It's part of the marketing process and you do it,'' Beatty said during a recent conversation that lasted for much of the afternoon.
``There was a period in American movie-making that was not dependent on demographic research for its financing. We went through a period, starting with `Bonnie and Clyde' [1967], and through `Reds' [1981], where we might have felt we were being more honest if we didn't give it a confected ending.''
Beatty never has been an easy interview, but he's an engaging one, an intelligent one - evasive, but never dull. He likes challenging you. He will question the question, suggest a better one, speculate on why you asked it.
On occasion, he will even praise the question, which, however, doesn't guarantee he will provide an answer.
An expert on Hollywood history, Beatty admits ``Love Affair'' is a sentimental movie. It's a remake of the 1939 hit that starred Charles Boyer as a playboy who falls for Irene Dunne, even after a car accident leaves her in a wheelchair.
The story also was brought back for the 1957 release ``An Affair to Remember,'' which was featured in last year's ``Sleepless in Seattle.''
While Beatty said he had wanted to remake ``Love Affair'' for years, the timing of the movie's release can't help but draw attention to his private life. Beatty, of course, stars as the playboy. His love interest is played by Annette Bening, for whom he ended his near-legendary bachelorhood two years ago.
``I don't want to leap too quickly to accept your premise. I'm doing a movie about a reformed playboy, so I understand your premise. ... But I don't want to fall for it,'' said Beatty, who has two children with Bening.
``I compare this movie to standing up and singing an old standard in the middle of a rap concert. I don't think you wonder who did this song before. You think, `This is a good tune and I like it.'''
He is now 57, but Beatty fans should be assured he looks great in person, even with the inevitable wrinkles and a head of hair that's grayer than on screen.
With bright sunshine providing the perfect backlight, Beatty has the look of an old-fashioned, Hollywood star. His build is lean, like Grant's or Gary Cooper's, and he wears the kind of casual, but stylish clothes they might have worn in their leisure time: black slacks and a smooth, gray turtleneck.
The younger brother of Shirley MacLaine, Beatty was born in Richmond, Va., in 1937. He was raised in what he has called a rigid, middle-class household. He was a football star in high school, but turned down several scholarships to concentrate on acting.
Drama classes at Northwestern University proved a bore. He dropped out in 1955 and studied acting under Stella Adler in New York. He arrived in Hollywood a few years later, making his film debut in 1961 in ``Splendor in the Grass'' with Natalie Wood.
``It was at the tail end of the studio system,'' Beatty recalled. ``Contracts were falling apart. There were not a lot of media outlets. The people in there had tremendous power out of proprotion: Hedda Hopper, Louella Parsons. Walter Winchell was still around.''
Most actors have to appear in at least a few features before acquiring an off-screen reputation, but Beatty's was in place from the beginning, thanks to a well-publicized affair with Joan Collins, when his acting experience was limited to television and theater.
``Splendor in the Grass'' nicely sets the stage for his life and career. Beatty and Wood star as high-school sweethearts whose relationship is destroyed by her insistence on abstaining from sex.
Privately, Wood had no such objections, as was the case with such future co-stars as Julie Christie, Diane Keaton, Madonna and Bening.
Publicly, ``Splendor in the Grass'' established Beatty's early screen persona as a troubled young man who could drive women out of their minds.
``When I played `The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone,' I did it because I didn't want to get pigeonholed into the `Splendor in the Grass' neurotic,'' Beatty said of his second movie, in which he played a gigolo.
``It's funny, you look back at them and who are you kidding? You're you and you're doing what you do.''
Still, Beatty disparages connections between his roles and what they say about the actor himself. ``You're victimized by this assignment,'' he tells the reporter. ``You have to do this for the story.''
But the connections are irresistible and they can make you rethink his unconventional image. While Beatty's marriage and fatherhood were likened to the crumbling of the Berlin Wall, his films make his own ``downfall'' seem almost predictable.
Nonconformists don't fare well in his movies. The dreamers, from ``McCabe and Mrs. Miller'' to ``Reds'' to ``Bugsy,'' die young. The womanizers, from ``All Fall Down'' to ``Shampoo,'' are more frustrated romantics than carefree bachelors.
``Most of us are fairly cynical by the time we get to our 20s,'' Beatty said. ``What's truthful and hopeful about `Love Affair' is that it's possible to stop being cynical and to be hopeful and you can redeem yourself from all that cynicism and cavorting and you can love in sickness and in health.''
What's wrong with cavorting?
``I don't think there's anything wrong with cavorting. There are good times and then there are good times. People just shouldn't be misled that that's the best time. For me, in my opinion, it's not. Fun is fun, but then there's other fun. It's better fun.
``When you're cavorting,'' he said, ``other people can look and say you're cavorting. You think you're just trying to find your way, but other people just see it from the outside.''
by CNB