Actor Sean Penn, who has played a tough guy, a cop and a killer, became a crime victim when his car was stolen as he lunched in downtown Berkeley, police said.

Someone stole Penn's black 1987 Buick Grand National while it was parked Tuesday afternoon in the 2300 block of Shattuck Avenue, said Berkeley Police spokesman Mary Kusmiss. The car was parked at a meter in a crowded stretch of downtown Berkeley full of pedestrians, not far from the main BART station and the UC Berkeley campus.

"It was a bold theft in broad daylight," Kusmiss said.

Also taken were two of Penn's guns -- a loaded 9mm Glock handgun stashed inside the car and an unloaded .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver in the trunk.

Penn, 42, who beat up two paparazzi who trailed him and then-fiancee Madonna in 1985, has a valid California concealed weapons permit.

Penn, who lives in Marin County, was eating lunch at Venus restaurant at 2327 Shattuck Ave. with his assistant between 1 p.m. and 2:45 p.m when the Buick was stolen.

After the stolen car report was broadcast on the police radio, a Berkeley cop reported seeing the limited-edition Buick traveling south on Shattuck near Derby Street about 2:30 p.m. Officers spent much of the afternoon fruitlessly combing South Berkeley and North Oakland. Similar Buicks, which are popular with muscle car collectors, sell for $8,500 to $10,000 on auto Web sites.

Penn's first theatrical movie was "Taps" in 1981. Since then, he has appeared in around 30 films, receiving three Academy Award nominations. Next month in Oakland, Penn is scheduled to start filming a movie titled "The Assassination of Richard Nixon," in which he plays a desperate insurance salesman who plans to crash a plane into the White House to make his mark on history.

Penn has played many controversial roles on screen, but most recently has drawn ire on the conservative talk-radio circuit for his opposition to the war in Iraq and his trip to Baghdad before the start of hostilities.