Actress Diane Keaton, known for her Oscar-winning performance in 1977’s Annie Hall and her role in The Godfather films, has died at age 79.
Details were not immediately available, and Keaton’s loved ones have asked for privacy, a family spokesperson told People, which said the actress died Saturday in California.
Keaton was a frequent collaborator of director Woody Allen, portraying the titular character in Annie Hall, the charming girlfriend of Allen’s comic Alvy Singer.
The film also garnered Oscars for best picture, best director, and best original screenplay, cementing Keaton’s place as one of the industry’s top actresses and an offbeat style icon as well.
The actress made her mark co-starring in eight Allen movies, from Play It Again, Sam (1972) to Manhattan (1979) and Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993). In The Godfather films, she played Kay Adams, the girlfriend and eventual wife of Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone.
Apart from the Allen cannon, fans adored her portrayal as Steve Martin’s wife in the 1991 comedy Father of the Bride, as the nervous and doting couple plan an extravagant wedding for their daughter.
Late in her career, Keaton starred in two movies about aging women: Book Club (2018), with its message that love has no age, and Poms (2019), the story of a terminally ill woman who moves to a retirement community to die but winds up forming a cheerleading squad.
A BAFTA and Golden Globe winner, Keaton scored Oscar nominations three other times for best actress, for Reds, Marvin’s Room, and Something’s Gotta Give.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences paid tribute to Diane Keaton, saying, “Some actors play emotions. Diane Keaton lived inside them.
Honored with the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award in 2017, Keaton was described as “unconventional, iconoclastic, and left-of-center.”
Her First Wives Club co-stars also remembered her warmly. Bette Midler called her “a complete original,” while Goldie Hawn said she “left us with a trail of fairy dust.” Actress Andie MacDowell, who worked with Keaton on Unstrung Hero (1995), said she felt “heartbroken” over her passing.
Born Diane Hall in Los Angeles on Jan. 5, 1946, she never married but raised two children, Dexter and Duke. In a 2019 interview, Keaton said aging brought clarity: “What have you got to lose? You face it, we talk about it.” AFP
