Student crush

A new biography of Hollywood actor and director Warren Beatty claims that he has slept with close to 13,000 women during the course of his busy life.

The New York Post revealed details of the book, Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America, on Monday.

Author Ron Biskind, who claims the biography was authorised by Beatty, said he arrived at the total of 12,775 by using simple arithmetic over the course of the life of the 72-year-old star, who the book says did not lose his virginity till he was almost 20 years old.

"12,775 women, give or take, a figure that does not include daytime quickies, drive-bys, casual gropings, stolen kisses and so on," the report quoted the book as saying.

Beatty, who has been married to actress Annette Benning since 1992, is most famously associated with entertainment legends like Jane Fonda, Joan Collins, Madonna, Diane Keaton and Julie Christie.

But the book says that he was an "equal-opportunity seducer who would sleep with almost any available woman." The biography quotes an intern on the 1974 movie, The Parallax View, as saying that he witnessed a steady stream of women make their way into Beatty's trailer: "Some of the girls were not particularly attractive. Some were chubby, some had hints of moustaches on their upper lips. Some had the errant pimple or mole or other blemishes."

The book also quotes a former lover of Beatty's who was rejected by her husband after she had a mastectomy to treat breast cancer. Beatty was outraged when he heard that and said: "I'd f*** you in a second. Fly out here."

In a statement to the Huffington Post, Beatty's attorney, Bertram Fields, denied the book was authorised by the actor.

"Mr Biskind's tedious and boring book on Mr Beatty was not authorised by Mr Beatty and should not be published as an authorised biography," Fields said.

"It contains many false assertions and purportedly quotes Mr Beatty as saying things he never said. Other media should not repeat things from the book on the assumption that they are true or that the book is an authorised biography.