She is an American actress. Her break-through role in The Grifters was followed with critically acclaimed roles in films such as Bugsy and American Beauty. In 1992, she married American actor and director Warren Beatty, with whom she has four children.

Bening was born in Topeka, Kansas, the youngest of four children, to Shirley, a church singer and soloist, and Arnett Grant Bening, a sales training consultant and insurance salesman. Her parents, natives of Iowa, were practicing Episcopalians and conservative Republicans. Her sister and two brothers are Jane Bening (born 1953), Bradley Bening (born 1955) and Byron Bening (born 1957). The family moved to Wichita, Kansas, in 1959, where she spent her early childhood. In 1965, her father took a job with a company in San Diego, California, and they moved there. She began acting in junior high school, playing the lead in The Sound of Music. She studied drama at Patrick Henry High School.

She then spent a year working as a cook on a charter boat taking fishing parties out on the Pacific Ocean, and scuba diving for recreation. She attended San Diego Mesa College, then completed an academic degree in theatre arts at San Francisco State University. Bening joined the acting company at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco while studying acting as part of the Advanced Theatre Training Program. During this time she established herself as a formidable acting talent in roles like Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth.

In 1985, Bening and her first husband, choreographer J. Steven White, moved to Denver, Colorado, to work at the Shakespeare Festival in Boulder, Colorado. They separated the following year.

Bening and Warren Beatty began a relationship during the filming of Bugsy (1991). Bening has said, "When Warren and I were first together and I was pregnant, we would get followed around by photographers. But it was nothing like what celebrities have to endure these days."They married on March 10, 1992 and have four children: Kathlyn (born January 8, 1992), Benjamin (born August 23, 1994), Isabel (born January 11, 1997) and Ella (born April 8, 2000).

Bening is a supporter of the Democrats and was a political contributor to the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama in 2008. She is a student of Iyengar Yoga.

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annette_Bening