Who slept with 13,000 women? Not me, denies Beatty!
Competing with this week's dramatic headlines about airline security, the economy and Afghanistan was the big Warren Beatty news: According to a new biography, the once-legendary stud has bedded nearly 13,000 women.The number did not seem surprising. In his Hollywood heyday, Beatty was as famous for his off-screen affairs (with such co-stars and fellow celebrities as Leslie Caron, Julie Christie, Diane Keaton and, improbably but memorably, Madonna) as for his on-screen achievements (not only as the star of such important films as Bonnie and Clyde and Reds, but also as their producer). His prowess, or compulsiveness, depending on how one sees it, was such that one serious girlfriend, Joan Collins, a supersexpot several decades before she vamped her way through Dynasty, claimed he once had sex with her while simultaneously discussing a movie deal on the telephone.
No, the real surprise here wasn't the high number, it was the fact that the legendary womanizer immediately issued a denial.
If ever there was a sign that the sexual revolution of the sixties is dead and buried! In 1991, NBA great Wilt Chamberlain bragged in his autobiography A View From Above that he slept with 20,000 women (giving new meaning to his basketball nicknames, Wilt the Stilt and The Big Dipper). Only two decades later, Beatty felt obliged to respond to a similar report by having his lawyer issue an affronted disclaimer that amounted to: I did not have sex with those women (at least, not all of them). The lawyer went so far as to call Peter Biskind’s book, Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America, “tedious and boring.”
It's official: Having over 10,000 sexual conquests has gone from having an "oooh!" factor to having an "ewww!" factor.
Now 72, married for 17 years (to Annette Bening), and the father of four, including three daughters, the star is sharp enough to know that flaunting your flings is no longer cool. Being a sexual showoff is the kind of childish behavior you’d expect from…well, from a 72-year-old. As for that 13,000 number: AIDS and a doctor's office full of STDs would make the average woman recoil in terror, and might give even the most macho guy cause to wonder. It could also be really hard to explain to your daughters.
