Beatty to Play Role of John Reed '10

Actor Warren Beatty said yesterday that his next screen appearance will be a filmed version of the life of a Harvard graduate who became one of the founders of the Communist Party in the United States.

Beatty, who was in Cambridge to accept the Hasty Pudding Club's Man-of-the-Year award, said he will star in a movie about John Reed '10, author of the first-person account of the Bolshevik revolution, "Ten Days That Shook the World."

"I am writing the screenplay at the moment and plan to collaborate on it at a later date," Beatty said.

Despite the extremely political nature of Reed's life. Beatty said the movie will focus more on the personal relationships Reed formed during his life, particularly the "private and poetic side" of his marriage to Louise Bryant.

Beatty said he believes that "the Russian conception of Reed as a fiery revolutionary was largely romantic. I am more interested in John Reed as a very left wing-writer who became less and less a poet and more and more a propagandist as his political involvement increased."