Beatty and ‘Bugsy’

Your article on the making of “Bugsy” provided my share of laughs for the week (“The Gangster Who Invented Vegas,” by Elaine Dutka, July 14).

First, that perceptive social scientist Warren Beatty pontificates: “Hollywood has exploited the hell out of gangsters over the years. . . . The narcissism of Hollywood is a mirror image of the narcissism of the underworld.”

What Beatty fails to add is that no one has exploited or profited more from the gangster saga than he. Does anyone remember 1967, when one disenchanted critic referred to Beatty sarcastically as “the Joy and Pride of ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ ”?

Then, newcomer Annette Bening--portraying famed party girl Virginia Hill--gushes, “Virginia is a full-blown woman with her own agenda. I love her volatility.” If mobster mistress Hill is Bening’s conception of a full-blown woman, then the ideals of women’s lib must have been short-circuited somewhere along the line.

Moral of the story: Movie stars should not be allowed to speak without their scripts, unless they look attractive with foot in mouth.

DAVID R. MOSS

Los Angeles