Stories: Diane Keaton, Oscar-winning star of ‘Annie Hall’ and ‘The Godfather,’ dies at 79

By Lindsey Bahr | Related Press

Diane Keaton, the Oscar-winning star of “Annie Hall,” “The Godfather” movies and “Father of the Bride,” whose quirky, vibrant method and depth made her probably the most singular actors of a technology, has died. She was 79.

Individuals Journal reported Saturday that she died in California with family members, citing a household spokesperson. No different particulars have been instantly accessible, and representatives for Keaton didn’t instantly reply to inquiries from The Related Press.

“She was hilarious, a complete original, and completely without guile, or any of the competitiveness one would have expected from such a star. What you saw was who she was…oh, la, lala!,” Bette Midler mentioned in a publish on Instagram. She and Keaton co-starred in “The First Wives Club.”

Keaton was the sort of actor who helped make movies iconic and timeless, from her “La-dee-da, la-dee-da” phrasing as Annie Corridor, bedecked in that necktie, bowler hat, vest and khakis, to her heartbreaking flip as Kay Adams, the lady unlucky sufficient to hitch the Corleone household.

Her star-making performances within the Nineteen Seventies, lots of which have been in Woody Allen movies, weren’t a flash within the pan both, and he or she would proceed to attraction new generations for many years, thanks partly to a longstanding collaboration with filmmaker Nancy Meyers.

She performed a businessperson who unexpectedly inherits an toddler in “Baby Boom,” the mom of the bride within the beloved remake of “Father of the Bride,” a newly single girl in “The First Wives Club,” and a divorced playwright who will get concerned with Jack Nicholson’s music govt in “Something’s Gotta Give.”

Keaton gained her first Oscar for “Annie Hall” and would go on to be nominated three extra occasions, for “Reds,” “Marvin’s Room” and “Something’s Gotta Give.”

In her very Keaton manner, upon accepting her Oscar in 1978, she laughed and mentioned, “This is something.”

A baby of Hollywood breaks by means of in New York

Keaton was born Diane Corridor in January 1946 in Los Angeles, although her household was not a part of the movie trade she would discover herself in. Her mom was a homemaker and photographer, and her father was in actual property and civil engineering.

Keaton was drawn to theater and singing whereas in class in Santa Ana, California, and he or she dropped out of school after a 12 months to make a go of it in Manhattan. Actors’ Fairness already had a Diane Corridor of their ranks, and he or she took Keaton, her mom’s maiden title, as her personal.

She studied below Sanford Meisner in New York and has credited him with giving her the liberty to “chart the complex terrain of human behavior within the safety of 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 always had a knack for sensing it but not yet the courage to delve into such dangerous, illuminating territory.”

She began on the stage as an understudy within the Broadway manufacturing of “Hair,” and in Allen’s “Play It Again, Sam” in 1968, for which she would obtain a Tony nomination.

Breaking by means of with ‘The Godfather’ and Woody Allen

Keaton made her movie debut within the 1970 romantic comedy “Lovers and Other Strangers,” however her huge breakthrough would come just a few years later when she was solid in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather,” which gained greatest image and have become probably the most beloved movies of all time. And but even she hesitated to return for the sequel, although after studying the script she determined in any other case.

The Nineteen Seventies have been an extremely fruitful time for Keaton, thanks partly to her ongoing collaboration with Allen in each comedic and dramatic roles. She appeared in “Sleeper,” “Love and Death,” “Interiors,” Manhattan,” “Manhattan Murder Mystery,” and the movie model of “Play it Again, Sam.”

Allen and the late Marshall Brickman gave Keaton one in all her most iconic roles in “Annie Hall,” the infectious girl from Chippewa Falls whom Allen’s Alvy Singer can’t recover from. The movie is taken into account one of many nice romantic comedies of all time, with Keaton’s eccentric, self-deprecating Annie at its coronary heart.

Within the New York Instances, critic Vincent Canby wrote, “As Annie Hall, Miss Keaton emerges as Woody Allen’s Liv Ullman. His camera finds beauty and emotional resources that somehow escape the notice of other directors. Her Annie Hall is a marvelous nut.”

Keaton and Allen have been additionally in a romantic relationship from about 1968, when she met him whereas auditioning for his play, till about 1974. Afterward, they remained collaborators and mates.

“He was so hip, with his thick glasses and cool suits,” Keaton wrote in her memoir. “But it was his manner that got me, his way of gesturing, his hands, his coughing and looking down in a self-deprecating way while he told jokes.”

She was additionally romantically linked to Al Pacino, who performed her husband in “The Godfather,” and Warren Beatty, who directed her and with whom she co-starred in “Reds.” She by no means married however did undertake two kids when she was in her 50s: a daughter, Dexter, and a son, Duke.

“I figured the only way to realize my number-one dream of becoming an actual Broadway musical comedy star was to remain an adoring daughter. Loving a man, a man, and becoming a wife, would have to be put aside,” she wrote within the memoir.

“The names changed, from Dave to Woody, then Warren, and finally Al. Could I have made a lasting commitment to them? Hard to say. Subconsciously, I must have known it could never work, and because of this, they’d never get in the way of achieving my dreams.”

When Keaton met Nancy Meyers

Not all of Keaton’s roles have been house runs, like her foray into motion in George Roy Hill’s John le Carré adaptation of “Little Drummer Girl.” However in 1987, she’d start one other long-standing collaboration with Nancy Meyers, which might end in 4 beloved movies. Evaluations for that first outing, “Baby Boom,” directed by Charles Shyer, may need been blended on the time, however Pauline Kael even described Keaton’s efficiency as a “glorious comedy performance that rides over many of the inanities.”

Their subsequent team-up can be within the remake of “Father of the Bride,” which Shyer directed and co-wrote with Meyers. She and Steve Martin performed the flustered mother and father to the bride, which might turn into an enormous hit and spawn a sequel.

AP Nationwide Author Hillel Italie in New York contributed.

Initially Printed: October 11, 2025 at 2:01 PM PDT