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Amazing, yes, but not surprising. HELLO - Julie Christie, Joan Collins, Cher, Diane Keaton, Madonna and on and on ... the man has been busy, folks. Would you want to go to work?
Beatty's legendary reputation as a ladies' man has tended to obscure an impressive career replete with serious, politically minded films.
Beatty may have a limited range as an actor, but he is a well-rounded talent - one of Hollywood's most accomplished hyphenates - who has produced, directed and usually co-written several of his finest films. He serves all of the aforementioned functions, as well as assuming the title role, in Bulworth, the week's major video release.
If not a huge box-office hit, the film was a critical triumph for Beatty, who is nominated for best original screenplay for Sunday's Oscars.
A scathing, often-riotously funny indictment of the absurd cost of American political campaigns and politicians who answer first to the corporate interests who pay their freight, Bulworth represents Beatty's most fearless performance - and his funniest.
That may not mean much for a guy who doesn't exactly specialize in comedy, but the buttoned-down Senator Jay Billington Bulworth's abrupt transformation to Puff Senator, the whitest practitioner of hip-hop to ever don a knit cap and a 12-pound gold chain, is inspired stuff.
This is a politically astute film from an artist who has dabbled in politics for 30 years. That is a picture of the real Beatty with Robert Kennedy in Bulworth's office. (Some dabbling.)
Along with his new-found affection for hip-hop, Bulworth finds the truth to his liking, and at each stop along the campaign trail ditches the prepared statement for a bit of frank talk with voters - the kind that loses elections.
Beatty may be the classic limousine liberal, but Bulworth at least addresses the way that huge constituencies in American life - in essence, those without money - are for all intents and purposes disenfranchised from the political process.