A MYTH ABOUT WARREN BEATTY

A new book claims that the actor slept with almost 13,000 women.We can count the ways, if a new unauthorized biography due out Jan. 12 is to be believed. In "Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America," author Peter Biskind contends that the actor, 72, has bedded nearly 13,000 women.

That's not a typo. According to Biskin, Beatty's been with 12,775 females, "give or take."

But according to Beatty's lawyer, that figure is a bunch of "baloney."

"It is absurd," attorney Bert Fields told ABCNews.com Monday. "Somebody must have made it up. It's just absurd."

Fields said that while Biskind interviewed Beatty for "Star," the author, a journalist who served as the executive editor of Premiere magazine and has written many prominent Hollywood tomes, including "Raging Bulls," "Down and Dirty Pictures," and "Gods and Monsters," never asked Beatty how many women the actor had bedded.

Fair enough. But it brings up the bigger point of, well, how many women has Hollywood's legendary ladies man been with, anyway?




"I haven't counted them," Fields said, "but I can tell you it's not ... what ever that ridiculous number was. Warren had long relationships with different women. During those periods, he was loyal to that particular woman." (Beatty has been married to actress Annette Bening since 1992; they have four children.)

So does Beatty himself even know what his "number" is?

"I don't think he knows," Fields said. "I mean, who keeps count of those things?"

A publicist for Simon & Schuster, the publishing house behind Biskind's book, told ABCNews.com that the company "stands by" the author despite Fields' denial of his claims. Biskind himself was not available for comment Monday.