Cinematic Crush: Warren Beatty

Crush object: Warren Beatty, actor/director/writer/ producer.

- The future auteur started his career on television, most notably as rich kid Milton Armitage on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. After leaving that series, he earned a Tony Award nomination for the Broadway play A Loss of Roses.

- He made his film debut in the classic romantic melodrama Splendor in the Grass, which won him a Golden Globe as "Most Promising Newcomer". He would go on to win three more Globes, including their lifetime achievement honor, the Cecil B. DeMille Award.

- Following the legendary Bonnie and Clyde, the 70's proved to be his decade, with such future classics as McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Shampoo and Heaven Can Wait, his first success as a multi-hyphenate. As star, co-director, co-writer and co-producer, he became one of the few people to be nominated for four Academy Awards for the same film.

- He would repeat that feat with his epic triumph, Reds, which netted him his own Oscar, as Best Director (in all, he has been nominated for an Oscar fourteen times, and also received the Academy's Irving G. Thalberg Award). From that high to the low of Ishtar, he went on to Dick Tracy, Bugsy and Bulworth.

- The American Film Institute honored him this year with their lifetime achievement award. The USA Network will broadcast the festivities tomorrow night at 9:00 PM EST.