In the Hollywood pantheon, Warren Beatty is both Narcissus and Proteus. When the strapping 6-footer crouched down to behold his reflection in the pool, he rippled the waters to give his face a soft-focus effect.

That visage, full-lipped and hungry, is memorable from his shape-shifting roles on "Bonnie and Clyde" (for which he was producer and star), "Shampoo" (producer, writer, star), "Heaven Can Wait" (producer, writer, co-director, star), and "Reds" (producer, writer, director, star).

Along with Orson Welles and Woody Allen, Mr. Beatty, 72, is among the elite to receive Oscar nominations in the best picture, actor, director and screenplay categories. Mr. Beatty achieved this milestone twice, with "Heaven Can Wait" and "Reds."

Now comes this alternately salacious and smart account of how Shirley MacLaine's kid brother made Hollywood history, a handful of movie classics, and (by Peter Biskind's math) 13,000 women.

Mr. Beatty's playmates included Jane Fonda, Natalie Wood, Leslie Caron, Julie Christie, Diane Keaton, Isabelle Adjani, Madonna and Annette Bening (whom he married when he was 54 and with whom he has four children).

And one might argue (although Mr. Biskind does not) that Mr. Beatty's paramours, many of them both personal and professional co-stars, were instrumental to the success of his movies.

What he does know is how Mr. Beatty represents Hollywood history post-1960. The actor co-starred with Vivien Leigh in "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone" and Halle Berry in "Bulworth." The filmmaker is an artist-entrepreneur who prefigured and influenced the filmmaking careers of Clint Eastwood, Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand.

As Jimmy Stewart redefined Hollywood in the 1950s by insisting that an actor share in a movie's profits, Mr. Beatty redefined Hollywood in the 1960s by insisting that an actor share in creative responsibilities.

On a movie-by-movie basis, Mr. Biskind is a deft analyst of Mr. Beatty's work, astutely noting how Mr. Beatty virtually defined "the intersection of politics and pop culture" in films such as "Shampoo" and "Bulworth."

But ask how did the high school star quarterback from Richmond, Va., come to be a Hollywood player? On that subject, "Star" is unforthcoming.

Mr. Beatty arrived in Hollywood in 1959, three years after dropping out of Northwestern University and moving to New York. By dint of looks and charm, and a stint at the Actors Studio, he worked his way through live-drama TV shows, then on to Broadway.

In New York, Mr. Beatty met William Inge, staging a charm offensive on the great (and gay) 1950s playwright whose coming-of-age dramas "A Loss of Roses" and "Splendor in the Grass" respectively marked the actor's Broadway and Hollywood debuts.

Mr. Beatty likewise worked his charm on Tennessee Williams to land "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone." Operating under the Production Code, it was a coy, desexed copy of a European art film and fared poorly.

The box office failures of "Roman Spring" and "All Fall Down" (also from Inge) made Mr. Beatty consider his career more strategically. That's when he made "Bonnie and Clyde." The film's sexual candor and its antiauthoritarian violence struck a nerve with audiences and effectively killed the Production Code.

Mr. Biskind perceptively notes that Mr. Beatty was more interested in politically engaged films than in standard Hollywood entertainment.

The actor-director's coda to the Nixon era was "Shampoo" (1975). When the political pendulum swung further right, Mr. Beatty celebrated the left in "Reds" (1981). And when Bill Clinton pushed the Democrats toward the center, he made "Bulworth" (1998).

Alas, what begins as a sympathetic portrait of a Hollywood titan grows into a catalog of his hubris. As Mr. Biskind gets deeper into the Beatty canon, collaborators increasingly complain about Mr. Beatty's need to control all elements of the movie. Ex-girlfriends complain about his need to control all elements of the relationship.

Over the past decade as Mr. Beatty tried to get his long-gestating movie about Howard Hughes off the ground, he turned down Quentin Tarantino's offer to play the title figure in "Kill Bill." Mr. Biskind's bio ends on a tentative note: Does Hollywood's Proteus have another movie in him?

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