FM: Overt Operations Unit
RE: Project Annette
FIRST THE BABY. NOW THE WEDDING. Honestly, Chief, this Bening dame has us completely flummoxed. Ever since Warren met her on the set of Bugsy (in which Annette, incidentally, gave a rat-a-tat-tat performance as moll Virginia Hill), she has wrapped Hollywood's formerly most eligible bachelor around her pinky, held his hand all over Europe—with their 2-month-old daughter. Kathlyn, in low—and taken the media for one helluva ride. Married? Who knew till after the couple announced on March 12 that they'd tied the knot in a private ceremony?
Warren, Annette and the kid are currently on America's Most Elusive list, but, using a web of sources who have known this mystery woman since childhood, here, as best we can figure, is how Annie got her guy:
1. Her timing-and Warren's-is impeccable. Or is it mere coincidence that baby Kathlyn was due the same time that Bugsy opened? Or that the couple's March 12 wedding announcement appeared just as the Oscar ballots were mailed out? Or that Warren's birthday (his 55th) just happens to be Oscar night?
2. Physically she's a knockout. And who (besides Beatty) would know better than costumer Richard Hornung, who dressed her as the oft-undressed temptress in 1990's The Grifters? "With everyone else," he says, "there's always something wrong: Their torso is too long, their thighs are fat. With her [a svelte 5'7"] there's nothing you can't show, because she's sort of fabulous everywhere."
3. She doesn't act. Huh? Let her mom explain. "I think Warren married Annette because she doesn't behave like an actress," says Shirley Bening, a church singer who lives in San Diego with her husband, Grant, a retired insurance man. "She's not always on. She's still herself."
Warren fell for Annette "probably because she's real down-to-earth," agrees Sandee Hirsh, a friend of Bening's from San Diego's Patrick Henry High School (and now an actress and singer who calls herself Shondra). Their drama teacher, Anne Krill, while praising Annette's talent, says that back then she wasn't exactly focused on stardom. "She had loads of interest in things other than drama"—including scuba diving. Still, says Krill, Annette was apparently "really upset" when she once gave her a C.
4. She can cook. To support her scuba habit, Annette, at 17, took a job as a cook on a dive boat off San Diego. "It was a tiny galley," says Shirley. "I couldn't believe what she had to work with." But the experience paid off. Her mom says Annette is now "a very good cook. I know she's good with light pasta dishes." Perfect for watching Warren's figure.
5. She's got moxie. "She always seemed adventurous," recalls Shondra. "She didn't have any hang-ups." Peter Donat, who acted with Bening during her five-year stint at San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater (ACT) in the mid-'80s, recalls vacationing at a lake with Annette and her then husband, Steve White, an ACT instructor. (The couple married in 1984 and divorced last year.) "She was intensely interested in any sport, especially windsurfing. She went out again and again." That sense of bravado extended to her career. Called to read with Robert De Niro for 1991's Guilty by Suspicion, "she had no nerves," recalls the director, Irwin Winkler. "About halfway through the reading, Bob looks at me and gives an almost imperceptible nod, like, 'Wow, she really is something.' " Obviously Warren agrees.
6. Warren's biological clock was ticking. Hey, don't laugh. Guys feel those parental pangs too. Look at Warren's buddy Jack Nicholson, 54, who welcomed his third child (and second in two years) just last month.
The youngest of four children, Annette, says her mom, "knew early on she wanted to be a mother. She said if she couldn't have kids physically, then she'd adopt."
7. She's even more private than Warren. Long before linking up with her sly shy guy, Bening clammed up about her personal life. Colleagues have noticed a similar coyness about her work. ACT artistic director Ed Hastings remembers, "Underneath the surface there was a secret smile."
Chief, it's that secret smile that's driving all of us Beatty watchers batty. Our recommendation: End the Annette surveillance and put us back on Warren's old flame, Madonna. There's nothing secret about her.
MICHAEL A. LIPTON
ROBIN MICHELI and NANCY MATSUMOTO in Los Angeles
- Contributors:
- Robin Micheli,
- Nancy Matsumoto.
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