Bening was born in Topeka, Kansas, the daughter of Shirley, a church singer and soloist, and Grant Bening, a sales training consultant and insurance salesman. Her parents, natives of Iowa, were practicing Episcopalians and conservative Republicans. Her sister and two brothers are Jane Bening (born 1953), Bradley Bening (born 1955) and Byron Bening (born 1957). The family moved to Wichita, Kansas, in 1959, where she spent her early childhood. In 1965, her father took a job with a company in San Diego, California, and they moved there. She began acting in junior high school, playing the lead in The Sound of Music. She studied drama at Patrick Henry High School.She then spent a year working as a cook on a charter boat taking fishing parties out on the Pacific Ocean, and scuba diving for recreation. She attended San Diego Mesa College, then completed an academic degree in theatre arts at San Francisco State University. Bening joined the acting company at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco while studying acting as part of the Advanced Theatre Training Program. During this time she established herself as a formidable acting talent in roles like Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth.
In 1985, she and her first husband, choreographer J. Steven White, moved to Denver, Colorado, to work at the Shakespeare Festival in Boulder, Colorado. They separated the following year.
She and Warren Beatty met on the set of Bugsy (1991), in which she played Virginia Hill, and the two began a secret romance. They married in 1992. She and Beatty live in Los Angeles with their four children, Kathlyn Elizabeth Beatty (born January 8, 1992 in Los Angeles County, California), Benjamin Maclean Beatty (born August 23, 1994 in Los Angeles County, California), Isabel Ira Ashley Beatty (born January 11, 1997) and Ella Corinne Beatty (born April 8, 2000). Her marriage to Beatty provided an additional push to her career, simply because of the large amount of tabloid publicity surrounding the romance and marriage; Beatty had been a life-long "most eligible bachelor" and was considered a playboy, before he met Bening.
She is a student of Iyengar Yoga.
Quick Info
Born Annette Francine Bening
May 29, 1958, Topeka, Kansas
Spouse(s)
- J. Steven White (1984-1991)
- Warren Beatty (1992-)
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