Marriage in Tinseltown is nothing short of a brief partnership that usually ends in bitter divorce and roaring media scandals. The institution of marriage as such is quasi non-existent and it’s all happening, presumably, because of the hectic lives celebrities lead. With all this, there still are some exceptions that come to prove to skeptics that, in Hollywood too, there are times when love can, and does last. Warren Beatty and Annette Bening are one of those happy couples and now we too can learn their secret recipe for a successful marriage.
Thanks to All Women’s Talk, which went through the trouble of looking up past interviews with the two iconic actors, we find that, in fact, for Warren and Annette too, marriage is where love meets compromise. It’s nothing like we see in the movies or read in books, but rather thinking about the other person at all times – and it is precisely this that makes the two less of celebrities and more like us, “mortals,” and their love story all the more remarkable.
Warren met Annette in 1991 on the set of “Bugsy,” married her one year later, had four children with her and, according to his own words, never stopped loving her. Yet, the first secret for a successful marriage in Hollywood that Annette reveals is, strangely enough, all about the kids. As a celebrity, she tells the Washington Post, you should always make sure your kids know the difference between the person you are at home and your public persona. “You try to avoid a big schism between who they experience as their parent and the person that people perceive in public. I have to have some faith that they’ll be able to handle this,” Annette explains. 
Second comes knowing that acting is just another job and far from something that defines you as an individual, a mistake that most of today’s young stars make quite often. “I knew I wanted children in my life. The acting was always in relation to it. Life at home is chaos. They’re wonderful. They’re such interesting human beings. I just love it,” Annette explains to the same media outlet.
Jealousy is often reason for divorce, and that’s definitely not restricted to celebrities. However, it is in Hollywood that the rate of separation is soaring, and has been for the recent years. Annette and Warren are well aware of that, as they also are of the reason that makes the “green monster” rear its ugly head: fame and subsequent exposure. “You’ve got to make peace with it. By and large it’s okay. You’re an object of people’s projections, certainly with my husband being so famous for so many years. That’s out of your control,” Annette tells the Post about how she learned to let go of her jealousy.
While the two actors have been married for 16 whole years now, one thing that neither he nor she ever regretted was the age when they had children. Kids for a celebrity, Warren says, are not a burden but a reason to be thankful and happy, just like with regular people. “There’s no point in regretting anything, because then they wouldn’t have been these kids. And I don’t know if I had the capacity to do it before,” Warren tells Fox News.
Speaking of age, the legendary actor also reveals that nothing should mar the daily existence of a happy family, and certainly no regrets of any kind. Life is what we make of it, and no time is a better time than the present. “When [the kids] are jumping on your stomach, making a trampoline out of you at six in the morning, that’s fun for me. That’s present tense,” the actor tells CNN.
In the age of speed that we’re living in now (in more ways than one), it is good to see that it’s people, famous people, like Warren Beatty and Annette Bening, coming to teach us a lesson in learning to value what we have before it’s gone. This, and much more, is what makes their love story a truly beautiful and remarkable one.
Warren Beatty aka Henry Warren Beaty: March 30, 1937 in Richmond, Virginia.
Annette Francine Bening: May 29, 1958 in Topeka, Kansas.

How Warren and Annette Met:

Annette and Warren met in 1991 to talk about the movie Bugsy.
"Meeting for lunch in San Pietro, a pizza restaurant in a mini-mall near his office in Beverly Hills, Beatty says that he knew within minutes that she [Annette] was the one. Long past due to settle down, "I was looking for someone to make me good" is how Beatty puts it."
Annette: "I didn't go into that meeting with Warren thinking it would lead to anything personal. I was thinking about the job. I didn't feel I would spend the rest of my life with him." 
Annette: "I didn't have any preconceptions about him. He didn't have any about me either," Annette says defiantly. "This wasn't about how many women he had been out with. Sure he likes women. Why shouldn't he? He makes you feel good. Well, he made me feel good! In fact, he is very committed to whatever he does and that includes being a father. He wants to do things well. I think we both knew pretty early on in Bugsy what was going on between us."
Annette: "With Warren and me, it was just a mutual feeling, and it was something that we both took very seriously very quickly. That's just how it happened. So the other kind of story about how I managed to snare him, I don't feel connected to it. I mean, he is a great guy! He is a fascinating man and a very appealing person. So that's what I was experiencing; it wasn't ego gratification."

Wedding Date and Info:

Annette and Warren were married on March 3, 1992. According to The New York Times, the "supersecret ceremony" of Warren and Annette wasn't announced until March 12, 1992.
"Warren Beatty and his "Bugsy" co-star, Annette Bening, announced their marriage. The couple's 2-month-old daughter, [Kathlyn], was their maid of honor."
Tom Cunneff: "To mark their 10th wedding anniversary on March 3, Warren Beatty bought her a 19th-century flower-petal choker pendant from Neil Lane in L.A. The four petals, made of red garnets and surrounded by diamonds, represent their four children (Kathlyn, 10, Ben, 7, Isabel, 5, and Ella, 1), while the diamond in the center represents Bening."

Children:

Annette and Warren have four children.

• Kathlyn Elizabeth Bening Beatty: Born in 1992.
• Benjamin Beatty: Born in 1994.
• Isabel Ira Ashley Beatty: Born in 1997.
• Ella Corinne Beatty: Born in 2000.

Annette: "We also really try to make time for ourselves. And I think they [their children] are pretty understanding about that. I think in some ways it is comforting to hear their parents say 'No, we're going to do something on our own. We want to be alone together.' But we also involve them in a lot of stuff."
Warren about the house he designed 12 years before marrying Annette: "When I designed this house, I put a little room right off the master bedroom. That was designed for a baby."

Occupations:

Warren Beatty: Actor, director, producer, writer, screenwriter.
Annette Bening: Actress.

Previous Marriages:

Annette's first marriage was on May 26, 1984 to J. Steven White. They separated in 1986 but did not divorce until 1991.

Quotes About the Marriage of Warren Beatty and Annette Bening:

Warren: "I was never divided on the subject [marriage] with Annette. I was never divided on the subject of having a child. And I was never divided on the subject of her integrity or intelligence or capacity to love."
Warren: “After years of running around and having a good time, I began to realize with some embarrassment that in most ways my movies all seem to return to one fairly unoriginal recurring theme: ‘Love conquers all,’ ” he said. “I don’t know if it’s true but it seems to be true for me.”
Peter Evans: "Certainly, no one was expecting him to marry. Indeed, he once told me that he had never married because he could not 'buy into that "until death do us part" stuff' and he had always had a weakness for infidelity. But now he yearned to have a family and time was running out. Children, he told his friends, were 'the key to understanding what is important'. Then Annette Bening entered his life."
Warren: "She [Annette] has a great capacity to be happy, which is a great gift to me and an even greater gift to her children. And, talking this week to the Daily Express newspaper, he added: "For me, the highest level of sexual excitement is in a monogamous relationship. I would hate myself if I failed to live up to it."
Annette about the 21-year age gap in their marriage: "Everybody who has an age difference in their marriage has to address it at times because you're at different stages in your life. You're going through different things. You have to have a fundamental love and mutual respect for one another for it to work."
Annette: "I'll tell you one secret to keeping the spark there: I think you've got to get away, just the two of you, with no kids. And you've got to spend time alone; you need to cultivate your own sense of self and nurture that as well."
Christopher Goodwin: "Now, as they near the 10th anniversary of a marriage most people thought would only last a few weeks, Warren Beatty and Annette Bening seem to offer their respective sexes everything they most want to hear about romance. Bening proves that a woman can snare a recalcitrant bad boy and get him to change his naughty ways. Beatty shows that a man can spend most of his life playing the field yet still find love and have children as he moves into his pensionable years. He can have his crumpet and eat it too."
Christopher Goodwin: "Now Beatty often speaks of his life as having two parts, BA and WB, Before Annette and With Annette."
Christopher Goodwin: "It hasn't all been roses, the couple admit, although it got easier when they each came to appreciate their differences rather than fight over them. Beatty is the more rational and careful of the two, Bening more impulsive. "We are very different," says Bening, "but you don't have to be alike to get along." "And," says Beatty, "we're fortunate to have a big house."
Annette about Warren's past reputation: "I think if you're with somebody for a while, you can't expect to take away his past. You have to know it and respect it. We both have friends from before we knew each other, and that's a big part of our lives. Whatever got him to where he is now is fine with me."
Cynthia Sanz: "Once Hollywood's leading Lothario, Beatty is, at 61, the unlikely picture of connubial contentment. Since wedding Bening, 40, his Bugsycostar, in 1992, he is not only serenely monogamous (it's "easy," he recently told shock jock Howard Stern) but also a proud father of three (Kathlyn, 6, Benjamin, 3, and Isabel, 1) who coaches Little League and schedules work around his family. "I can't stand to be away from them," he told USA Today."
Warren: "I would say the biggest changes -- it [marriage and fatherhood] has caused me to get into the present tense, try not to go too far into the future, not too long into the past."
Richard Cohen: "Bening is billed as the woman who reformed Warren Beatty. Whether she actually did or not - whether what seems true today will be true tomorrow - is beside the point. Perhaps more interesting is the idea that she is the agent of Beatty's change. In other words, the transformation of Beatty from womanizer to family man did not come from within but was the result of Bening. He met her, and that, as they say, was that. Nonsense. So it is not likely that Annette Bening all by herself has changed Warren Beatty, domesticated him, stopped him from womanizing and made him want a child. It is much more likely that these changes came from within Beatty, and that, for sure, is the only way they'll endure ... Only Warren Beatty could change Warren Beatty."
Shirley Bening: "I think Warren married Annette because she doesn't behave like an actress. She's not always on. She's still herself."
Annette: "Warren is an individual thinker. He doesn't follow the crowd, and I really like that about him."
Warren: "I met her and I thought, 'Wo-o-o-o-o! Wait a minute.'"
Warren: "The highest level of sexual excitement is in a monogamous relationship. I'm not an expert on marriage ... That phrase, 'until death do us part,' -- I always said if you're going to stand up and make this sort of promise, then you really ought to keep it."