A New Look At Warren Beatty's Relationship with Madonna

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Advance copies of Peter Biskind's new biography of Warren Beatty, Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America, have started circulating and in an effort to be the best homos we can be, we turned directly to the sections featuring the actor's former paramour, Madonna, and transcribed a few of our favorites for your reading pleasure:

• Beatty was never long without female companionship, and Madonna was waiting in the wings. She was 30, while Beatty was 51. According to Sandra Bernhard, "Madonna and I were in the back of a limo driving to some concert in L.A., and she said, 'Sandy, did you fuck Warren Beatty?' I said, 'No.' And then a month later she started dating him. I always thought, What if I had said yes, I'd fucked him, would that have meant she wouldn't have wanted him? The deal would have been off? I guess she was just testing the waters.'

• Beatty began seeing Madonna in January 1990, shortly after Sean Penn famously tied her to a chair, which didn't prevent the younger man from phoning her to point out that Beatty was 'old enough to be your damn father.' According to a friend of his, Penn 'would follow her at night and, always, they would end up at Warren's... He'd sit in Warren's gate, waiting for her to leave. Often, she wouldn't do so until the sun rose.'

• As Madonna reportedly recounted to a friend, Beatty called her from the car, said, 'I'm half a mile from your house. Take off your panties.' A few minutes later, he called again: 'I'm four blocks from your house. Take off your bra.' And again, when he pulled up outside her Malibu home: 'Now I wanted you to go downstairs and unlock the door. Then I want you to lie on your bed and wait for me to come to you and make love to you like you've never been made love to before.' Apparently that wasn't good enough, because she said she didn't have an orgasm. She complained the sex was better with Penn, and wondered why she was with Beatty. But high maintenance at the best of times, she was in particular need of an island of calm. The actor supplied it. Moreover, her interest in him was piqued by rumors from the Inge-Williams days that he was bisexual.

• At that time, Madonna was racking up column inches by teasing the envelope of gender ambiguity with her friendship with Bernhard, who was a lesbian and proud of it. During a dinner with Beatty at the Sushi Cove (sushi was his food of choice), Madonna was offered a selection of vanilla or chocolate ice cream for dessert. She chose both, which got him thinking. He asked her, 'You seem to like to try everything. Have you ever made it with a woman?' 'Have you ever done it with a man?' [she responded]. 'Do you want a woman?' he replied, ignoring her. 'Because if you do, it will be my present to you. I'll get you a woman...if I can watch.' 'All this, just from ordering two kinds of ice cream?' [she said].

Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America will be in stores on January 5.

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