In a career spanning over four decades, Keaton has created a vast body of acclaimed work, especially her performances in several Woody Allen and "The Godfather" series films.
Diane Keaton is a well-known American film actress and director, who gained prominence for quirky comic roles prior to gaining respect as a dramatic actress. She received early acclaim for her work in a number of Woody Allen films and her dramatic turn in "The Godfather" series. She's renowned for comedic hits, like "The First Wives Club" and "Something's Gotta Give".
Besides, Diane is also known as a photographer, author and singer.
Background
Diane Keaton was born as Diane Hall on January 5, 1946, in Los Angeles, California. Her mother, Dorothy Deanne (née Keaton), was a homemaker and amateur photographer; her father, John Newton Ignatius "Jack" Hall, was a real estate broker and civil engineer. Keaton was raised as a Free Methodist by her mother. 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 wanting to work on stage.
Education
Keaton is a 1964 graduate of Santa Ana High School in Santa Ana, California. 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.
Then Keaton studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York.
Diane Keaton appeared in summer stock in the mid-1960s and in 1968 understudied the lead in the Broadway rock musical Hair. She had the lead role in Woody Allen’s Broadway play Play It Again, Sam (1969), which she later reprised for the 1972 film version. Keaton made her film debut in Lovers and Other Strangers (1970); her character, a young naïf divorcing her husband because his hair no longer smells like raisins, established a comic persona that would sustain her early career.
Though she acted in Francis Ford Coppola’s acclaimed gangster dramas—The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather, Part II (1974)—Keaton appeared mostly in Allen’s comedies during the 1970s, including Sleeper (1973), Love and Death (1975), Interiors (1978), and Manhattan (1979).
Keaton’s watershed year was 1977: in two films she not only established herself as a star but succeeded in both reinventing her screen persona and capitalizing on her established one. Allen’s Annie Hall—which won Academy Awards for best picture, actress, and director—is probably the role for which she is best known, appearing as the archetypal Keaton "kook." Based on the real-life relationship between Allen and Keaton, the film chronicles Annie’s transformation from shy awkwardness to mature confidence. In many ways it was an autobiographical statement for Keaton, who made a dramatic turn the same year in Richard Brooks’s dark, violent Looking for Mr. Goodbar. She continued in that vein as journalist Louise Bryant in Warren Beatty’s Reds (1981), which earned her another Oscar nomination.
Keaton found continued success in such diverse films as Shoot the Moon (1982), The Little Drummer Girl (1984), Crimes of the Heart (1986), and the popular Baby Boom (1987). She reunited with Allen for a cameo in Radio Days (1987) and a leading role in Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993). During the 1990s she appeared in several films with broad appeal, such as The Godfather, Part III (1990), the romantic farce Father of the Bride (1991), and the melodrama Marvin’s Room (1996).
In the early 21st century Keaton starred in a number of lighthearted comedies, including Nancy Meyers’s Something’s Gotta Give (2003), opposite Jack Nicholson; The Family Stone (2005); Because I Said So (2007); and Morning Glory (2010), in which she and Harrison Ford portrayed TV anchors with clashing personalities. She returned to less frothy fare with the dramedy Darling Companion (2012) before starring in the multigenerational-family farce The Big Wedding (2013) and the comedies And So It Goes (2014) and Love the Coopers (2015). Keaton voiced a blue tang fish, the mother of the title character (voiced by Ellen Degeneres), in Pixar’s computer animated aquatic adventure Finding Dory (2016). She then took on her first regular television role, playing a nun in HBO’s The Young Pope (2016). She later starred in the romantic comedies Hampstead (2017) and Book Club (2018).
In addition to acting, Keaton also directed several films, including Hanging Up (2000). Her memoir, Then Again, was published in 2011. She later wrote a collection of essays, Let’s Just Say It Wasn’t Pretty (2014), and also published a series of house-styling guides, including House (2012) and The House That Pinterest Built (2017).
Keaton stated that she produced her 1987 documentary Heaven because, "I was always pretty religious as a kid ... I was primarily interested in religion because I wanted to go to heaven." She has also stated that she considered herself a Christian.
Politics
Keaton is a Democrat, but one that prefers not to use her fame to talk much about her own politics.
In 2008 she supported Hillary Clinton and her run for the White House. "I can’t say how much she means to me as a female figure," Diane said of Clinton. "If it doesn’t work out for her, of course I will completely support Obama and hope that she’ll be the vice-presidential nominee. Because I’m a Democrat."
Views
Keaton is an opponent of 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."
Keaton is active in campaigns with the Los Angeles Conservancy to save and restore historic buildings, particularly in the Los Angeles area. Among the buildings she has been active in restoring is the Ennis House in the Hollywood Hills designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Keaton had also been active in the failed campaign to save the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles (a hotel featured in Reservations), the location of Robert Kennedy's assassination in 1968. She is an enthusiast of Spanish Colonial Revival architecture.
Quotations:
"I think that people who are famous tend to be underdeveloped in their humanity skills."
"A sense of freedom is something that, happily, comes with age and life experience."
"My mother was really my partner in every project that I had. She was just the great enabler of my dreams."
Personality
Currently, Diane is an icon when it comes to style and fashion. Most ladies set her as a pinnacle of their physical appearance goals in old age, but Diane wasn’t always a fan of her own body. When she was young, Keaton neither liked her nose nor her eyes as she tried excessive blinking and using a pin to achieve the result she envisioned in her mind. Keaton has credited Katharine Hepburn, whom she admires for playing strong and independent women, as one of her inspirations.
Outside of the film industry, Keaton has continued to pursue her interest in photography. As a collector, she told Vanity Fair in 1987: "I have amassed a huge library of images – kissing scenes from movies, pictures I like. Visual things are really key for me." She has published several more collections of her own photographs, and has also served as an editor for collections of vintage photography. Works she has edited in the last decade 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 also established herself as a real estate developer. She has resold several mansions in Southern California after renovating and redesigning them. One of her clients is Madonna, who purchased a US$6.5 million Beverly Hills mansion from Keaton in 2003.
Physical Characteristics:
Diane is definitely ageing gracefully. At her age, she still finds a way to keep her trim figure and her ever radiant smile. Though her career over the years required her to always look good for the screens, Diane had learnt to always put her health at a high priority. She always ensures she does some kind of exercise every single day even though her schedule is tight. Nevertheless, in her youthful years, this was not always the case.
When she had to lose a bit of weight for her role in Hair, the only way she knew how to was by forcing her finger down her throat right after eating. At that point in her life, she had no idea this was an eating disorder called bulimia, to her it was just a little trick to stay in shape. Little did she know that she was about to struggle with this disorder for 5 years and would require her to go for therapy for full recovery.
Interests
Politicians
Hillary Clinton
Connections
Keaton has had several romantic associations with noted entertainment industry personalities, starting with her time with the Broadway production of Play It Again, Sam when she auditioned for director Woody Allen. Their association became personal following a dinner after a late-night rehearsal. It was her sense of humor that attracted Allen. They briefly lived together during the Broadway production, but by the time of the film release of the same name in 1972, their living arrangements became informal. They worked together on eight films between 1971 and 1993, and Keaton has said that Allen remains one of her closest friends.
Keaton was already dating Warren Beatty from 1979 when they had co-lead roles in the film Reds. Beatty was a regular subject in tabloid magazines and media coverage in which she was included much to her bewilderment. Her avoidance of the spotlight earned her in 1985 from Vanity Fair the attribution as "the most reclusive star since Garbo." This relationship ended shortly after Reds wrapped. Troubles with the production are thought to have caused strain on the relationship, including numerous financial and scheduling problems. Keaton remains friends with Beatty.
Keaton also had a relationship with her The Godfather Trilogy costar Al Pacino. Their on-again, off-again relationship ended following 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 was gorgeous, very pretty, but Al's face is like whoa. Killer, killer face."
In July 2001, Keaton revealed her thoughts on 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." 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. She later said of having children, "Motherhood has completely changed me. It's just about the most completely humbling experience that I've ever had."
2004, Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical - Something's Gotta Give (2003)
1978, Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical - Annie Hall (1977)
2004, Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical - Something's Gotta Give (2003)
1978, Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical - Annie Hall (1977)