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"You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what you're doing is work or play." Warren Beatty should know about success in his field, as the actor has been successful at what he does for decades. With a long and varied career and an exciting personal life, Beatty has been able to have the best of both worlds. He has not only acted but has also produced and directed, and his nominations and awards continue to add up. With 53 Academy Award nominations for the films he has produced and 14 Academy Award nominations for his acting, Beatty knows about success more than most people. But how did he get his start, and where will he go now that he has such a long career behind him? Read on to find out more about Warren Beatty's life and work.

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Getting His Start in a Virginia Town

Beatty was born in Richmond, Virginia, and his mother and father were both teachers. His dad also worked in school administration and sold real estate. He grew up Baptist, and the family moved around Virginia when he was young. They lived in several different towns and then finally settled in Arlington. He has a sister, the actress Shirley MacLaine. He went to the movies with his sister a lot when he was little, and that got him interested in films before he was even a teenager. Beatty was particularly interested in The Philadelphia Story (1940), when it was re-released in the 1950s. He also appreciated the movie Love Affair (1939), and would remake it in 1994 and star in it along with Katharine Hepburn and Annette Bening.

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One of the people Beatty greatly admired was comedian Milton Berle, and he worked on doing an impression of Berle that was very good and very funny. He loved Al Jolson records, as well, and was often more comfortable behind the camera where he could be in complete control of the lighting, wardrobe, and other factors that come into the creation of a movie. Even when he was acting in roles, he would offer suggestions about lights, scene placement, and more. These were not always met with enthusiasm or even amusement, but Beatty continued to offer them because he knew he could provide something valuable to the world, and he wanted to make sure his voice was heard when it came to making great films that audiences and critics would appreciate and enjoy.

An Acting Career to be Proud Of

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Beatty has said, "I think I've been lucky enough not to have to do movie after movie after movie for financial reasons, so I've been able to live life and also make movies. I didn't have to grind them out. I could go long periods where I was living life rather than tripping over cables." But when he first started out, Beatty knew the value of trying to get all the roles he could. He needed to make his mark in Hollywood before he could relax and only take the roles he wanted to take. He started out with television show appearances in the 1950s and 1960s, but none of them really led to anything significant. Still, Beatty worked steadily and focused on doing the best job with every role he accepted.

While he was learning to act, he was also trying to learn to direct. He even sought out directors whose work he appreciated, so he could work with them and learn what they knew. Beatty was driven and dedicated, and that came through in everything he did both on and off the screen. By the middle of the 1960s, Beatty was appearing in a number of films, including Lilith (1964), Kaleidoscope (1966), and Promise Her Anything (1964). When Beatty was 29, he acted in and produced Bonnie and Clyde (1967). The head of the studio had serious misgivings about putting up money for the project, but it was a commercial and critical success. It was nominated for seven Golden Globes and ten Academy Awards.

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Throughout the next few decades, Beatty would work only on the kinds of projects that really interested him. These included Dick Tracy (1990), and Bugsy (1991), along with a number of other films. Town & Country (2001) did poorly, and Beatty was upset about that. He took 15 years off, essentially, and didn't star in or produce another film during that time. He eventually returned to acting, though, and returned to making movies that were important to him or that he believed in. He has been honored by a number of associations and has won numerous awards. In 1992, Beatty married fellow actor Annette Bening, and they have four children together. Fans likely haven't seen the last of Beatty, who still has much to offer the world of Hollywood and beyond.