Hollywood’s idiosyncratic leading actress, Diane Keaton, dies at the age of 79

Diane Keaton, who remained one of Hollywood’s most idiosyncratic and beloved actors for decades after her Academy Award-winning performance in the film Annie Halldied at the age of 79.

Her film producer confirmed her death to NPR on Saturday.

When I met Keaton for an interview in 2014, she was wearing her signature look: a bowler hat, tinted glasses and oversized clothes.

“Clothes that actually hide the body,” she half-joked. “There’s a lot to hide in my case, so I’m the only person left on earth with this particular look.”

Keaton was truly a fashionista and inspired generations of women with her unconventional lifestyle. On screen, she was known for playing endearing, unique and sometimes eccentric characters.

In one of her memoirs, Keaton wrote about growing older and love in Hollywood and about aging later in life. She also opened up about some of her insecurities; she worried about growing older, her hair was thinning and her eyes were drooping. But Keaton told me that later in life she finally came to accept that all flaws are beautiful.

“I feel like wrong can be right. It can be right in a lot of ways,” she said. “So all those things you’re disappointed about in yourself can work for you.”

FILE – Oscar winners Charles H. Joffe, best picture winner for “Annie Hall,” left, and Diane Keaton, best actress winner for “Annie Hall,” pose with host Jack Nicholson and producer Jack Rollins at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles on April 3, 1978.

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She was born Diane Hall in Los Angeles in 1946, the daughter of real estate agent 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 performer in New York. After studying at the Neighborhood Playhouse in the 1960s, Keaton became an understudy in the original Broadway production of the rock musical Her.

“It was wild. It was unexpected,” she said. “But I could see that I really wasn’t a hippie. I knew I wasn’t a hippie Her.”

Keaton famously refused to go onstage naked for the final scene of Her.

Then along came Woody Allen, with whom she had a romantic relationship. Allen cast her in it Play it again, Samhis play and then his film. Also his film comedies Sleeper, Love and death, Manhattanand of course Annie Hall.

Keaton’s crazy, quirky performance as Annie Hall and her “lah-de-dah” charm won her an Oscar for Best Actress in 1978. She thanked Woody Allen in her acceptance speech and later for her entire career. She stood by him during the controversy over allegations that Allen once abused his daughter, which the director denies.

“That will never change,” Keaton said of her support for Allen. “He’s my very, very good friend.”

In Annie HallKeaton showed off her comedy And singing chops. But she also had dramatic film roles, most famous in The godfather trilogy. Her character marries into the Corleone mafia family.

Her Godfather costar, Al Pacino, was one of her boyfriends in real life. Another of her true loves, Warren Beatty, directed her in his 1981 film Red.

FILE – Filmmaker Woody Allen, left, greets actress Diane Keaton on stage to present her with the 45th AFI Life Achievement Award on June 8, 2017 in Los Angeles.

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In the historical drama about journalist John Reed, Keaton played his love interest, activist Louise Bryant.

“I loved her position in life,” Keaton said of her character, who she said played second fiddle to Reed (played by Beatty.) “And she wanted to be great. She wanted greatness in her. And fighting for herself, and failing and failing. That’s why I loved her. I loved her for her flaws. She was a difficult person who wasn’t very nice, but I loved her anyway.”

Jack Nicholson was also present Red. He teamed up with Keaton again in 2003 for the comedy Something has to give. Keaton also starred opposite Keanu Reeves in that film.

Diane Keaton never married, although in films she was one of the few older American actresses who continued to land romantic leading roles. That was something that actress Carol Kane, Keaton’s longtime girlfriend, was excited about at the time.

“She plays the love interest a lot,” Kane said. “You know, a little passionate kissing and heading into the bedroom… at an age when most people just say, ‘Okay, that part’s over.’ I mean, she’s just getting more beautiful because she’s becoming more and more herself.”

Diane Keaton attends the premiere of “Book Club: The Next Chapter” at AMC Lincoln Square on Monday, May 8, 2023 in New York.

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For years Keaton starred in films such as Looking for Mr. Goodbar, The First Women’s Club And Baby boom. She directed the documentary Heaven in 1987. She also wrote books about her life, about architecture, photography and beauty; she collected photos of beautiful men, renovated beautiful houses and raised two beautiful children as a single mother. When she turned 50, she adopted her daughter Dexter and five years later her son Duke.

“It’s an unconventional life, that’s true,” she told me. “But I don’t really see it that way, because I think everyone has a beautiful… is there a life that doesn’t have a story that isn’t pretty amazing? I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t. I just clawed my way into the life that I have because I had a goal and it was very simple: I wanted to be in the movie.”

Keaton told me she was a late bloomer. But her fans might say that death came way too soon for her.