Oscars 2017: Meet Warren Beatty, the Hollywood legend who made that epic goof up | Hollywood - Hindustan Times
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Oscars 2017: Meet Warren Beatty, the Hollywood legend who made that epic goof up

Hindustan Times | By, New Delhi
Mar 30, 2017 06:26 PM IST

Oscars 2017: Here’s a brief primer on Warren Beatty, the Hollywood legend who found himself in the centre of the spotlight after mistakenly announcing La La Land as the Best Picture winner instead of Moonlight.

Hollywood legend Warren Beatty had been out of the limelight for a number of years, and this was hardly the manner in which he would have liked to have made his comeback. At the 89th Academy Awards, Beatty, along with his co-presenter Faye Dunawaye (who played the iconic outlaw duo Bonnie & Clyde in the 1967 film), were involved in a massive gaffe when they mistakenly announced La La Land as the Best Picture winner instead of Moonlight.

Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway present for Best Picture at the 89th Academy Awards.(REUTERS)
Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway present for Best Picture at the 89th Academy Awards.(REUTERS)

Faye Dunaway, left, and Warren Beatty present the award for best picture at the Oscars. (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
Faye Dunaway, left, and Warren Beatty present the award for best picture at the Oscars. (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Beatty attempted to clear the confusion by saying that the winner’s envelope that he was given read ‘Emma Stone - La La Land’ instead of Moonlight.

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The matter was cleared when Jordan Horowitz held up the actual winner’s name, while host Jimmy Kimmel chastised Beatty for goofing up.

Watch the entire exchange here

For those of your who are lost, here’s a primer on Warren Beatty:

Beatty was born on 30 March 1937 in Richmond, Virginia. He and his wife, Annette Bening, live in Los Angeles and have four children.

Since starring in his first film, Splendour in the Grass (1961), Warren Beatty has been said to have demonstrated a greater longevity in movies than any actor of his generation.

Warren Beatty, moments after he had been made aware of the gaffe. (REUTERS)
Warren Beatty, moments after he had been made aware of the gaffe. (REUTERS)

He was awarded Best Director from the Directors Guild of America and Best Writer three times from the Writers Guild of America. He has received the Milestone Award from the Producers Guild, the Board of Governors Award from the American Society of Cinematographers, the Directors Award from the Costume Designers Guild, the Life Achievement Award from the Publicists Guild, and the Outstanding Contribution to Cinematic Imagery Award from the Art Directors Guild. The National Association of Theater Owners has honored him as Director of the Year, as Producer of the Year and as Actor of the Year.

He has won 16 awards from the New York and Los Angeles Film Critics, the National Board of Review, and the Golden Globes. In 1992, he was made a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in France; in Italy he received the David di Donatello award in 1968 and again in 1981 and its Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998; in 2001, he received the Donostia Lifetime Achievement Award from the San Sebastian International Film Festival; in 2002, he received the British Academy Fellowship from BAFTA; and in 2011, he was awarded the Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award for Excellence in Film.

Beatty was the first choice to play Michael Corleone in The Godfather (1972), but he turned it down.

Jimmy Kimmel and Warren Beatty laugh after correcting the Best Picture Oscar from La La Land to Moonlight. (REUTERS)
Jimmy Kimmel and Warren Beatty laugh after correcting the Best Picture Oscar from La La Land to Moonlight. (REUTERS)

He has a photographic memory for phone numbers. He can dial a touch tone phone using the same hand technique as telephone operators.

In the films he produces, he usually plays characters who lose something important by the end of the film.

Watch: The great goof-up

Along with Robert Redford, Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson, Richard Attenborough and Kevin Costner, he is one of six people to win and Academy Award for “Best Director”, though they are mainly known as actors.

His most recent film was Rules Don’t Apply, released in 2016, in which he plays Howard Hughes.

With inputs from IMDb

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