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
John Beatty (Continental Congress) and Christiana (née Clinton) Beatty. John's grandmother was the daughter of James Clinton and the sister of Charles Clinton (himself the father of Revolutionary War Major General James Clinton and Vice President George Clinton, and the grandfather of New York Governor DeWitt Clinton). Beatty graduated from the College of New Jersey (later known as Princeton University) in 1769. He was a student of Founding Father Benjamin Rush. Beatty became a doctor and opened his first practice in Hartsville, Pennsylvania. He rose to the rank of major in the 6th Pennsylvania Regiment of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.