Diane Keaton, who remained one of Hollywood’s most eccentric and beloved actresses decades after her Oscar-winning performance in the film Annie Hall, died at 79.
Her film producer confirmed her death to NPR on Saturday.
When I met Keaton for an interview in 2014, she was sporting her signature look: bowler hat, sunglasses, and baggy clothes.
“Clothes that really hide the body,” she joked. “There’s a lot to hide in my case, so I’m the only person on Earth with this particular look.”
Keaton was truly a fashionista, inspiring generations of women with her utterly unconventional lifestyle. On screen, she was known for portraying captivating, unique, and sometimes eccentric characters.
In one of her memoirs, Keaton wrote about aging and love in Hollywood and becoming a mother later in life. She was also frank about some of her insecurities; she worried about age, thinning hair, droopy eyes. But Keaton told me that later in life, she finally accepted that all flaws are beautiful.
“I feel that the wrong can be right. It can be right in many ways,” she said. “So all those things you’re disappointed in about yourself can work in your favor.”
She was born Diane Hall in Los Angeles in 1946, daughter of real estate broker and civil engineer Jack Hall. Her mother, Dorothy, was once crowned Mrs. Los Angeles.
Keaton said her mother encouraged her as she pursued her dreams of becoming a singer and artist in New York. After studying at the Neighborhood Playhouse in the 1960s, Keaton ended up as an understudy in the original Broadway production of the rock musical Hair.
“It was crazy. It was unexpected,” she said. “But I could see that I really wasn’t a hippie. I knew I wasn’t a hippie in Hair.”
Keaton refused to go nude on stage for the final scene of Hair.
Then came Woody Allen, with whom she had a romantic relationship. Allen cast her in Play It Again, Sam, his play and then his film. Also for his film comedies Sleeper, Love and Death, Manhattan and, of course, Annie Hall.
Keaton’s eccentric and quirky role as Annie Hall and her “lah-de-dah” charm earned her an Oscar for best actress in 1978. She thanked Woody Allen in her acceptance speech and, subsequently, throughout her career. She supported him throughout the controversy over allegations that Allen molested his daughter, which the director denies.
“That will never change,” Keaton said about her support for Allen. “He is my great, great friend.”
In Annie Hall, Keaton showcased her comic and vocal talent. But she also had dramatic roles in films, the most famous of which was in the Godfather trilogy. Her character marries a member of the Corleone mafia family.
Her Godfather co-star, Al Pacino, was one of her real-life boyfriends. Another of her real-life loves, Warren Beatty, directed her in his 1981 film Reds.
In the historical drama about journalist John Reed, Keaton played his love interest, activist Louise Bryant.
“I loved her position in life,” Keaton said about her character, who, according to her, took a backseat to Reed (played by Beatty). “And she wanted to be great. She wanted greatness in her. And to fight for herself, and fail and fail. I loved her for that. I loved her for her flaws. She was a difficult person and not very likable, but I loved her.”
Jack Nicholson was also in Reds. He reunited with Keaton in 2003 for the comedy Something’s Gotta Give. In that film, Keaton also starred opposite Keanu Reeves.
Diane Keaton never married, though on screen she was one of the few older American actresses who still landed leading romantic roles. That was something actress Carol Kane, Keaton’s longtime friend, praised at the time.
“She plays the love interest frequently,” Kane said. “You know, kind of passionately kissing and going into the bedroom… at an age when most people just say: ‘Ok, that part is over.’ I mean, she gets more and more beautiful because she is more and more herself.”
For years, Keaton starred in films like Looking for Mr. Goodbar, The First Wives Club and Baby Boom. She directed the documentary Heaven in 1987. She also wrote books about her life, architecture, photography and beauty; she collected photos of handsome men, renovated beautiful houses and, as a single mother, raised two beautiful children. At 50, she adopted her daughter, Dexter, and five years later, her son, Duke.
“It’s an unconventional life, it’s true,” she told me. “But I really don’t see it that way, because I think everyone has a… is there a life that doesn’t have a story that isn’t beautiful and surprising? I’ve never met anyone who didn’t. I just worked to get to the life I have because I had a goal, and it was very simple: I wanted to act in movies.”
Keaton told me she developed late. But her fans might say that death came too soon for her.
Source: npr.org by Mandal