Warren Beatty 'has slept with 12,775 women' biography claims

Warren Beatty, the Hollywood actor and legendary lothario, has slept with more than 12,000 women, according to a new authorised biography.

Beatty has enjoyed high profile romances with Madonna, Jane Fonda, Isabelle Adjani, Diane Keaton, Joan Collins, Julie Christie and his current wife Annette Bening - but writer Peter Biskind has claimed that the 72 year old secretly seduced thousands of women during his heyday.

In Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America, Mr Biskind estimates the actor has slept with "12,775 women, give or take, a figure that does not include daytime quickies, drive-bys, casual gropings, stolen kisses and so on."

The author told the New York Post that he had based the figure on "simple arithmetic".

Mr Biskind, who wrote the biography after lengthy conversations with the Bonnie and Clyde star, claims older partner Joan Collins dumped Beatty because of his insatiable appetite for sex, and that he only met his match the much-younger Madonna.

The pair, who met on the set of Dick Tracy, dated, but Sandra Bernhard, a friend of Madonna's, said Beatty struggled to keep up with the party-loving singer.

Bernhard said: "We would taunt him, say things to make him feel uncomfortable. He was the perfect target, because he played the befuddled old man with her."

Mr Biskind added: "Beatty, a man who was accustomed to being worshipped by women, was on dangerous ground with Madonna."

However, Beatty has denied the book was authorised and said it contained many false assertions.

Beatty's lawyer, Bertram Fields, told the Huffington Post that the book was full of fabricated quotes from the actor.