Diane Keaton
Diane Keaton (born Diane Hall on January 5, 1946) is an American actress. She has received various accolades throughout her career spanning over five decades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for a Tony Award and two Emmy Awards. She was honored with the Film Society of Lincoln Center Gala Tribute in 2007 and an AFI Life Achievement Award in 2017.
Diane Keaton
Keaton's career began on stage when she appeared in the original 1968 Broadway production of the musical Hair. The next year she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her performance in Woody Allen's comic play Play it Again, Sam. She then made her screen debut in a small role in Lovers and Other Strangers (1970), before rising to prominence with her first major film role as Kay Adams-Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972), a role she reprised in its sequels Part II (1974) and Part III (1990). She frequently collaborated with Woody Allen, beginning with the film adaptation of Play It Again, Sam (1972). Her next two films with him, Sleeper (1973) and Love and Death (1975), established her as a comic actress, while her fourth, Annie Hall (1977), won her the Academy Award for Best Actress.
To avoid being typecast as her Annie Hall persona, Keaton appeared in several dramatic films, starring in Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) and Interiors (1978). She received three more Academy Award nominations for her roles as activist Louise Bryant in Reds (1981), a leukemia patient in Marvin's Room (1996), and a dramatist in Something's Gotta Give (2003). Keaton is also known for her starring roles in Manhattan (1979), Baby Boom (1987), Father of the Bride (1991), Father of the Bride Part II (1995), The First Wives Club (1996), The Family Stone (2005), Finding Dory (2016) and Book Club (2018).
Early life and education[edit]
Keaton was born Diane Hall in Los Angeles, California on January 5, 1946.[1][2] Her mother, Dorothy Deanne (née Keaton),[3] was a homemaker and amateur photographer; her father, John Newton Ignatius "Jack" Hall, was a real estate broker and civil engineer,[4][5][6] whose mother had come from Ireland.[7] Keaton was raised a Free Methodist by her mother.[8][9][10] Her mother won the "Mrs. Los Angeles" pageant for homemakers; Keaton has said that the theatricality of the event inspired her first impulse to be an actress, and led to her desire to work on stage.[11] She has also credited Katharine Hepburn, whom she admires for playing strong and independent women, as one of her inspirations.[12]
Keaton is a 1964 graduate of Santa Ana High School in Santa Ana, California.[13] During her time there, she participated in singing and acting clubs at school, and starred as Blanche DuBois in a school production of A Streetcar Named Desire. After graduation, she attended Santa Ana College, and later Orange Coast College as an acting student, but dropped out after a year to pursue an entertainment career in Manhattan.[14] Upon joining the Actors' Equity Association, she changed her surname to Keaton, which was her mother's maiden name, as there was already an actress registered under the name of Diane Hall.[15] For a brief time she also moonlighted at nightclubs with a singing act.[16] She revisited her nightclub act in Annie Hall (1977), And So It Goes (2014), and a cameo in Radio Days (1987).
Keaton began studying acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City. She initially studied acting under the Meisner technique, an ensemble acting technique first evolved in the 1930s by Sanford Meisner, a New York stage actor/acting coach/director who had been a member of The Group Theater (1931–1940). She describes her acting technique as, "[being] only as good as the person you're acting with ... As opposed to going it on my own and forging my path to create a wonderful performance without the help of anyone. I always need the help of everyone!"[16] According to fellow actor Jack Nicholson, "She approaches a script sort of like a play in that she has the entire script memorized before you start doing the movie, which I don't know any other actors doing that."[17]
Career[edit]
1970s[edit]
In 1968, Keaton became an understudy for part of Sheila in the original Broadway production of Hair.[18] She gained some notoriety for her refusal to disrobe at the end of Act I when the cast performs nude, even though nudity in the production was optional for actors (those who performed nude received a $50 bonus).[11][19] After acting in Hair for nine months, she auditioned for a part in Woody Allen's production of Play It Again, Sam. After nearly being passed over for being too tall (at 5 ft 8 in (173 cm), she is 2 inches (5 cm) taller than Allen), she won the part.[4] She went on to receive a Tony Award nomination for a Best Featured Actress in a Play for her performance in Play It Again, Sam.
Personal life[edit]
Relationships and family[edit]
Keaton has had romantic associations with several entertainment industry personalities, starting with director Woody Allen during her role in the 1969 Broadway production of Play It Again, Sam. Their relationship turned romantic following a dinner after a late-night rehearsal. It was her sense of humor that attracted Allen.[115] They briefly lived together during the production, but by the time of the film release of the same name in 1972, their living arrangement became informal.[116] They worked together on eight films between 1971 and 1993, and Keaton has said that Allen remains one of her closest friends.[25]
Keaton also had a relationship with her Godfather Trilogy costar Al Pacino. Their on-again, off-again relationship ended after the filming of The Godfather Part III. Keaton said of Pacino, "Al was simply the most entertaining man... To me, that's, that is the most beautiful face. I think Warren [Beatty] was gorgeous, very pretty, but Al's face is like whoa. Killer, killer face."[117]
Keaton was already dating Warren Beatty in 1979 when they co-starred in the film Reds (1981).[118] Beatty was a regular subject in tabloid magazines and media coverage, and Keaton became included, much to her bewilderment. In 1985, Vanity Fair called her "the most reclusive star since Garbo."[15] This relationship ended shortly after Reds wrapped. Troubles with the production are thought to have strained the relationship, including numerous financial and scheduling problems.[36] Keaton remains friends with Beatty.[25]
In July 2001, Keaton said of being older and unmarried, "I don't think that because I'm not married it's made my life any less. That old maid myth is garbage."[119] Keaton has two adopted children, daughter Dexter (adopted 1996) and son Duke (2001). Her father's death made mortality more apparent to her, and she decided to become a mother at age 50.[55] She later said of having children, "Motherhood has completely changed me. It's just about like the most completely humbling experience that I've ever had."[120]
Other activities[edit]
Keaton has been a vegetarian since around 1995.[122][123] She has continued to pursue photography. In 1987, she told Vanity Fair, "I have amassed a huge library of images—kissing scenes from movies, pictures I like. Visual things are really key for me."[121] She has published several collections of her photographs and served as an editor of collections of vintage photography. Works she has edited include a book of photographs by paparazzo Ron Galella, an anthology of reproductions of clown paintings, and a collection of photos of California's Spanish-Colonial-style houses.
Keaton has served as a producer on films and television series. She produced the Fox series Pasadena, which was canceled after airing only four episodes in 2001 but completed its run on cable in 2005. In 2003, she produced the Gus Van Sant drama Elephant, about a school shooting. Of why she produced the film, she said, "It really makes me think about my responsibilities as an adult to try and understand what's going on with young people."[124]
Since 2005, Keaton has been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post. Since 2006, she has been the face of L'Oréal.[125] In 2007, Keaton received the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Gala Tribute. She opposes plastic surgery. She told More magazine in 2004, "I'm stuck in this idea that I need to be authentic ... My face needs to look the way I feel."[12]
Keaton is active in campaigns with the Los Angeles Conservancy to save and restore historic buildings, particularly in the Los Angeles area.[16] Among the buildings she has been active in restoring is the Ennis House in the Hollywood Hills, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.[32] Keaton was also active in the failed campaign to save the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles (a hotel featured in Reservations), where Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. She is an enthusiast of Spanish Colonial Revival architecture.[126]
Keaton has also been a real estate developer. She has resold several mansions in Southern California after renovating and redesigning them. One of her clients was Madonna, who purchased a $6.5 million Beverly Hills mansion from Keaton in 2003.[127]
Keaton wrote her first memoir, Then Again, for Random House in November 2011.[128] Much of it relies on her mother's private journals, which include the line "Diane...is a mystery...At times, she's so basic, at others so wise, it frightens me."[129] In 2012, Keaton's audiobook recording of Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem was released on Audible.com.[130] Her performance was nominated for a 2013 Audie Award in the Short Stories/Collections category.
Acting style and legacy[edit]
Keaton has been called "one of the great American actresses from the heyday of the 1970s", a style icon and a "treasure" with a personal and professional style that is "difficult to explicate and impossible to duplicate."[131][132][133] Many critics have pointed to her versatility in starring in both light comedies and acclaimed dramas. The New York Times described Keaton as "remarkably skilled" at portraying Woody Allen's "darling flustered muse" in his comedies, as well as "shy, self-conscious women overcome by the power of their own awakened eroticism" in dramatic films like Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Reds, Shoot the Moon and Mrs. Soffel.[134] It also noted Keaton's ability to consistently reinvent and challenge herself on screen, having transitioned from "Allen's ditzy foil" to a "gifted and erotically nuanced character actress" and later "an appealing maternal figure... a woman's woman with a sexy edge."[134][135]
Literary critic Daphne Merkin argued that Keaton remained more popular with audiences than her contemporaries because of her "friendly accessibility" and "charmingly self-effacing" persona, calling Keaton's most "steadfastly glamorous" asset her "megawatt personality, bursting out of her like an uncontrollable force of nature, a geyser of quirkily entertaining traits that fall on the air and lend everything around her a momentary sparkle."[134] In New York magazine, Peter Rainer wrote, "In her Annie Hall days, [Keaton] was famed for her thrown-together fashion sense, and her approach to acting is, in the best way, thrown-together, too. Audiences love her because they identify with the women she plays, who are never all of a piece. Nobody can be grave and goofy all at once like Diane Keaton. In these fractious times, it's the perfect combo for a modern heroine."[136] Famously self-deprecating, Keaton has been noted for her "wry sense of humor" and "eccentric gender-bending style."[137]
Analyzing her on-screen persona, Deborah C. Mitchell wrote that Keaton often played "a complex, modern American woman, a paradox of self-doubt and assurance", which became her trademark. Mitchell suggests that Keaton made Annie Hall a "critical juncture for women in American culture. In this ism-infected age, Keaton became not just a star but an icon. Annie Hall, and with her Diane Keaton, presented all of the uncertainty and ambivalence of the new breed of women."[138] Likewise, Bruce Weber felt Keaton's eccentricity—"an amalgam of caginess and insecurity" and a "note of comic desperation... her round-cheeked Annie Hall dewiness"—was her gift as a screen comedian.[133] Keaton's Annie Hall is often cited among the greatest Oscar-winning performances in history: Entertainment Weekly ranked it 7th on its "25 greatest Best Actress Winners" list, praising her "loopy mannerisms, jazz-club serenades, and endlessly imitated fashion sense."[139] After seeing her performance in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Andrew Sarris remarked, "Keaton is clearly the most dynamic woman star in pictures. And any actress who can bring wit and humor to sex in an American movie has to be blessed with the most winning magic."[140]
When asked what made Keaton funny, Allen said: "My opinion is that with the exception of Judy Holliday, she's the finest screen comedienne we've ever seen. It's in her intonation; you can't quantify it easily. When Groucho Marx or W.C. Fields or Holliday would say something, it's in the ring of their voices, and she has that. It's never line comedy with her. It's all character comedy."[133] Charles Shyer, who directed her in Baby Boom, said Keaton was "in the mold of the iconic comedic actresses Carole Lombard, Irene Dunne and Rosalind Russell."[141] In 2017 Keaton was chosen by the board of directors of the American Film Institute to receive the AFI Life Achievement Award, which Woody Allen presented.[142]