I'd be vain too. An upcoming biography of Beatty authored by Peter Biskind reports that Beatty slept with around 12, 775 women "give or take" over a 35-year period from around 1955 to him meeting Annette Bening (his current wife) in 1991. That basically equates to a new gal every single day over that period. I recall Hank Williams, Jr.'s famous lyric about liking "to have women I've never had," but this is ridiculous. My first thought was to wonder how Beatty's stats stack up with The Legend himself, Wilt Chamberlain. Well, I looked it up again and Wilt claimed to have bedded 20,000 different women during his life. So on first blush, you might think Beatty has some work to do. But not so fast. The Beatty biography author Biskind offers a very significant caveat to his 12,775 figure, pointing out that it does not include "daytime quickies, drive-bys, casual gropings, stolen kisses, and so on." Methinks that if one was to include some of that action, plus Beatty's pre-1955 and post-1991 liaisons, he might just be right up there in Wilt's league or perhaps even exceed it. In short, more empirical data and research are necessary.Post-Script: I was at first embarrassed to mention that I have no earthly idea what a "drive-by" means in the sexual context. So I was a bit relieved to see that the linked LA Times blog on Beatty's conquests also apparently asks the very same question ("If anyone can offer a good definition of what might constitute a Warren Beatty 'drive-by,' we'd love to hear it."). And also for the record, while I do believe that "daytime quickies" (as I understand that phrase) should be added to and included within the Beatty tally, there's no way that you include "casual gropings" or "stolen kisses" in any credible count of sexual activities. I wanted to make my position very clear on that point.
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