Warren Beatty moved his family from Richmond to Norfolk and then to Arlington and Waverly, then back to Arlington, eventually taking a position at Arlington's Thomas Jefferson Junior High School in 1945. During the 1950s, the family resided in the Dominion Hills section of Arlington. Beatty's elder sister is the actress, dancer and writer Shirley MacLaine. His uncle, by marriage, was Canadian politician A. A. MacLeod. Beatty became interested in movies before his teens, when he often accompanied his sister to theaters. One film that had an important early influence on him was "The Philadelphia Story" (1940), which he saw when it
Donald Beatty radio circuit Beatty developed for the station was the subject of his first U. S. patent, awarded in 1922. In 1929, Beatty recruited investors from Birmingham and New Orleans, Louisiana to back a trade delegation by air to South America. He would serve as director and pilot with Robb C. Oertel as co-pilot, Leslie Walker as navigator, and Martel Brett, a "Birmingham Age-Herald" reporter, as historian. Hopes for the flight, which were widely publicized, were dashed by the Wall Street Crash of 1929. In 1931 Beatty re-launched his ambitions for an expedition to South America, adding the enticement of exploration