Diane Keaton, the Oscar-winning star of the films “Annie Hall,” “The Godfather” and “Father of the Bride,” whose quirky, vibrant manner and depth made her one of the most unique actresses of a generation, has died. She was 79 years old.
Dexter Keaton White, Keaton’s daughter, confirmed her mother’s death, according to NBC News. “We seek privacy at this time. No further comment,” she said.
People Magazine first reported Saturday that Keaton died in California, surrounded by his loved ones.
This unexpected news caused shock throughout the world. Keaton was the kind of actress who helped make films iconic and timeless, from her “La-dee-da, la-dee-da” expression as Annie Hall, decked out in that tie, bowler hat, vest and khakis, to her heartbreaking turn as Kay Adams, the woman unlucky enough to join the Corleone family.
Her star performances in the 1970s, many of which were in Woody Allen films, weren’t a flash in the pan either, and she would continue to charm new generations for decades thanks in part to a longtime collaboration with filmmaker Nancy Meyers.
She played a businessman who unexpectedly inherits a baby in “Baby Boom,” the mother of the bride in the beloved remake of “Father of the Bride,” a newly single woman in “First Wives Club” and a divorced playwright who becomes involved with Jack Nicholson’s musical director in “Something’s Gotta Give.”
Keaton won her first Oscar for “Annie Hall” and was nominated three more times, for “Reds,” “Marvin’s Room” and “Something’s Gotta Give.”
In true Keaton fashion, while accepting her Oscar in 1978, she laughed and said, “That’s something.”
Keaton was born Diane Hall in January 1946 in Los Angeles, although her family was not in the film industry, she would find herself in it. His mother was a housewife and photographer, and his father worked in real estate and civil engineering.
Keaton was drawn to acting and singing while at school in Santa Ana, California, and she dropped out after a year to try her luck in Manhattan. Actors’ Equity already had Diane Hall in its ranks, and she took Keaton, her mother’s maiden name, as her own.
She studied under Sanford Meisner in New York and credited him with the freedom to “chart the complex terrain of human behavior safely under his guidance.” It made playing with fire fun.”
“More than anything, Sanford Meisner helped me learn to appreciate the darker side of behavior,” she wrote in her 2012 memoir, “Then Again.” “I have always had the gift of feeling it, but not yet the courage to delve into such dangerous and enlightening territory.”
She debuted on stage as an understudy in the Broadway production of “Hair” and in Allen’s “Play It Again, Sam” in 1968, for which she would receive a Tony nomination.
Keaton made her film debut in the romantic comedy “Lovers and Other Strangers” in 1970, but her big break would come a few years later when she was cast in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather,” which won Best Picture and became one of the most beloved films of all time. And yet, even she hesitated to come back for the sequel, although after reading the script, she decided otherwise.
The 1970s were an incredibly fruitful period for Keaton, thanks in part to his continued collaboration with Allen in comedic and dramatic roles. She appeared in “Sleeper”, “Love and Death”, “Interiors”, Manhattan”, “Manhattan Murder Mystery” and the film version of “Play it Again, Sam”.
Allen and the late Marshall Brickman gave Keaton one of her most iconic roles in “Annie Hall,” the infectious woman of Chippewa Falls from whom Alvy Singer (played by Allen) cannot recover. The film is considered one of the greatest romantic comedies of all time, with Keaton’s eccentric and self-deprecating Annie at its heart.
