May 26. 2010
Let's check out the ol' mailbag:

"Hi Bob,
"Saw that you're reading the Beatty book. Did you see the Woody Allen piece in the New Yorker about Warren?

Woody's Warren Parody

"Never really 'got' Warren's appeal, guess Woody would be more my style."
—Nancy Ehlers, Tempe, AZ

Yes, in fact, I had read the Woody parody in the New Yorker before I went to Border's Books in Scottsdale and saw Star by Peter Biskind. So, based on the parody I bought the book and am am really enjoying it. The irony is that Woody Allen is in the book several times, and Beatty speaks highly of Woody's Annie Hall as being a "very, very good movie." Of course he was praising Diane Keaton at the time he was sleeping with her. The number of conquests is simply staggering: he slept with Jackie Kennedy AND Molly Ringwald! He seemed to juggle five or six at the same time, and often got multiples on the bedsprings at the same time.

But the book is not just about the sex (although it's quite entertaining in a "Oh, my God, not her too!" kind of way). He drove his film crews crazy with many, many takes, sometimes 75 or more and as the overtime multiplied, they began to call it "Master Beatty." Funny.

"Warren always played the girl."
Dick Sylbert, a producer