Diane Keaton
Encyclopedia
Diane Keaton is an American film actress, director, producer, and screenwriter
. Keaton began her career on stage, and made her screen debut in 1970. Her first major film role was as Kay Adams-Corleone in The Godfather
(1972), but the films that shaped her early career were those with director and co-star Woody Allen
beginning with Play It Again, Sam in 1972. Her next two films with Allen, Sleeper
(1973) and Love and Death
(1975), established her as a comic actor. Her fourth, Annie Hall
(1977), won her the Academy Award for Best Actress
.
Keaton subsequently expanded her range to avoid becoming typecast as her Annie Hall persona. She became an accomplished dramatic performer, starring in Looking for Mr. Goodbar
(1977) and received Academy Award nominations for Reds (1981) and Marvin's Room (1996). Some of her popular later films include Baby Boom
(1987), Father of the Bride
(1991), The First Wives Club
(1996), Something's Gotta Give
(2003) and The Family Stone
(2005). Films Keaton has been in have earned a cumulative gross of over USD
$1.1 billion
in North America. In addition to acting, she is also a photographer
, real estate
developer, author, and occasional singer.
Keaton; 1921–2008), was a homemaker
and amateur photographer, and her father, Jack Newton Ignatius Hall (1921–1990), was a real estate
broker and civil engineer
. Her father, from Nebraska
, came from an Irish American Catholic background, and her mother, originally from Kansas
, came from a Methodist
family. Keaton was raised a Methodist by her mother. Her first ambition to become an actor came after seeing her mother win the "Mrs. Los Angeles" pageant for homemakers. Keaton has said that the theatricality of the event inspired her to become a stage actor. She has also credited Katharine Hepburn
, whom she admires for playing strong and independent women, as one of her inspirations.
Keaton is a 1963 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. Upon joining the Actors' Equity Association
, she adopted the surname of Keaton, her mother's maiden name, as there was already a registered Diane Hall. For a brief time, she also moonlighted nightclubs with a singing act. She would later revisit her nightclub act in Annie Hall
(1977) 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 has described 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!" According to her Reds co-star Warren Beatty
, "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."
In 1968, Keaton became a member of the "Tribe" and understudy to Sheila in the original Broadway
production of Hair
. 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). 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./1.73 m she is two inches/5 cm taller than Allen), she won the part.
After being nominated for a Tony Award
for Play It Again, Sam, Keaton made her film debut in 1970's Lovers and Other Strangers
. She followed with guest roles on the television series Love, American Style
and Night Gallery
. Between films, Keaton appeared in a series of deodorant
commercials.
Keaton's breakthrough role came two years later when she was cast as Kay Adams, the girlfriend of Michael Corleone
(played by Al Pacino
) in Francis Ford Coppola
's 1972 blockbuster The Godfather
. Coppola noted that he first noticed Keaton in Lovers and Other Strangers, and cast her because of her reputation for eccentricity
that he wanted her to bring to the role (Keaton claims that at the time she was commonly referred to as "the kooky actress" of the film industry). Her performance in the film was loosely based on her real life experience of making the film, both of which she has described as being "the woman in a world of men". The Godfather was an unparalleled critical and financial success, becoming the highest grossing film of the year and winning the Best Picture Oscar of 1972.
Two years later she reprised her role as Kay Adams in The Godfather Part II
. She was initially reluctant, stating that, "At first, I was skeptical about playing Kay again in the Godfather sequel. But when I read the script, the character seemed much more substantial than in the first movie." In Part II her character changed dramatically, becoming more embittered about her husband's activities. Even though Keaton received widespread exposure from the films, her character's importance was minimal. Time wrote that she was "invisible in The Godfather and pallid in The Godfather, Part II."
Keaton's other notable films of the 1970s included many collaborations with Woody Allen. Although by the time they made films together, their romantic involvement had ended, she played many eccentric characters in several of his comic and dramatic films including Sleeper
, Love and Death
, Interiors
, Manhattan
, and the film version of Play It Again, Sam, directed by Herbert Ross
. Allen has credited Keaton as his muse during his early film career.
In 1977, Keaton starred with Allen in the romantic comedy
Annie Hall
, one of her most famous roles. Annie Hall was written and directed by Allen and the film was believed to be autobiographical of his relationship with Keaton. Allen based the character of Annie Hall loosely on Keaton ("Annie" is a nickname of hers, and "Hall" is her original surname). Many of Keaton's mannerisms and her self-deprecating sense of humor were added into the role by Allen. (Director Nancy Meyers
has claimed "Diane's the most self-deprecating person alive".) Keaton has also said that Allen wrote the character as an "idealized version" of herself. The two starred as a frequently on-again, off-again couple living in New York City. Her acting was later summed up by CNN
as "awkward, self-deprecating, speaking in endearing little whirlwinds of semi-logic", and by Allen as a "nervous breakdown in slow motion." The film was both a major financial and critical success, and won the Academy Award
for Best Picture
. Keaton's performance also won the Academy Award for Best Actress
. In 2006, Premiere
magazine ranked Keaton in Annie Hall as 60th on their list of the "100 Greatest Performances of All Time":
Keaton's eccentric wardrobe in Annie Hall, which consisted mainly of vintage men's clothing, including neckties, vest
s, baggy pants, and fedora
hats, made her an unlikely fashion icon of the late 1970s. Most of the clothing seen in the film came from Keaton herself, who was already known for her tomboy
ish clothing style years before Annie Hall, though Ruth Morley and Ralph Lauren
reportedly worked on the movie's costume. Soon after the film's release, men's clothing and pantsuits became popular attire for women. She is known to favor men's vintage clothing
, and usually appears in public wearing gloves and conservative attire. (A 2005 profile in the San Francisco Chronicle
described her as "easy to find. Look for the only woman in sight dressed in a turtleneck on a 90-degree afternoon in Pasadena.) Keaton would later reprise her Annie Hall appearance when she attended the 2003 Academy Awards presentation in a men's tuxedo
and a bowler hat
.
Her photo by Douglas Kirkland
appeared on the cover of the September 26, 1977, issue Time magazine with the story dubbing her "the funniest woman now working in films." Later that year, she departed from her usual lighthearted comic roles when she won the highly coveted lead role in the drama Looking for Mr. Goodbar
, based on the novel
by Judith Rossner
. In the film she played a Catholic schoolteacher for deaf children who lives a double life, spending nights frequenting singles bars and engaging in promiscuous sex. Keaton became interested in the role after seeing it as a "psychological case history." The same issue of Time commended her role choice and criticized the restricted roles available for female actors in American films:
In addition to acting, Keaton has stated that "[I] had a lifelong ambition to be a singer." She had a brief, unrealized career as a recording artist in the 1970s. Her first record was an original cast recording of Hair, in 1971. In 1977, she began recording tracks for a solo album, but the finished record never materialized.
Keaton met with more success in the medium of still photography. Like her character in Annie Hall, Keaton had long relished photography as a favorite hobby, an interest she picked up as a teenager from her mother. While traveling in the late 1970s she began exploring her avocation more seriously. "Rolling Stone had asked me to take photographs for them, and I thought, 'Wait a minute, what I'm really interested in is these lobbies, and these strange ballrooms in these old hotels.' So I began shooting them", she recalled in 2003. "These places were deserted, and I could just sneak in anytime and nobody cared. It was so easy and I could do it myself. It was an adventure for me." Reservations, her collection of photos of hotel interiors, was published in book form in 1980.
After Manhattan in 1979, Keaton and Woody Allen ended their long working relationship, and the film would be their last major collaboration until 1993. In 1978, Keaton became romantically involved with Warren Beatty
, and two years later he cast her to play opposite him in Reds. In the film, she played Louise Bryant
, a journalist and feminist, who flees from her husband to work with radical journalist John Reed
(Beatty), and later enters Russia to locate him as he chronicles the Russian Civil War
. The New York Times
wrote that Keaton was, "nothing less than splendid as Louise Bryant – beautiful, selfish, funny and driven. It's the best work she has done to date." Keaton received her second Academy Award nomination for the film.
Beatty cast Keaton after seeing her in Annie Hall, as he wanted to bring her natural nervousness and insecure attitude to the role. The production of Reds was delayed several times since its conception in 1977, and Keaton almost left the project when she believed it would never be produced. Filming finally began two years later. In a 2006 Vanity Fair
story, Keaton described her role as "the everyman of that piece, as someone who wanted to be extraordinary but was probably more ordinary ... I knew what it felt like to be extremely insecure." Assistant director
Simon Relph later stated that Louise Bryant was one of her most difficult roles, and that "[she] almost got broken."
1984 brought The Little Drummer Girl
, Keaton's first excursion into the thriller and action genre. The Little Drummer Girl was both a financial and critical failure, with critics claiming that Keaton was miscast for the genre, such as one review from The New Republic
claiming that "the title role, the pivotal role, is played by Diane Keaton, and around her the picture collapses in tatters. She is so feeble, so inappropriate." However, that same year she received positive reviews for her performance in Mrs. Soffel
, a film based on the true story of a repressed prison warden's wife who falls in love with a convicted murderer and arranges for his escape. Two years later she starred with Jessica Lange
and Sissy Spacek
in Crimes of the Heart
, adapted from Beth Henley
's Pulitzer Prize-winning play into a moderately successful screen comedy. She starred in her first commercial vehicle with 1987's Baby Boom
, her first of four collaborations with writer-producer Nancy Meyers
. In Baby Boom, Keaton starred as a Manhattan career woman who is suddenly forced to care for a toddler. That same year she made a cameo in Allen's film Radio Days
as a nightclub singer. 1988's The Good Mother was a misstep for Keaton. The film was a financial disappointment (according to Keaton, the film was "a Big Failure. Like, BIG failure"), and some critics panned her performance, such was one review from The Washington Post
: "her acting degenerates into hype – as if she's trying to sell an idea she can't fully believe in."
In 1987, Keaton directed and edited her first feature film, a documentary named Heaven about the possibility of an afterlife
. Heaven met with mixed critical reaction, with The New York Times likening it to "a conceit imposed on its subjects." Over the next four years, Keaton went on to direct music videos for artists such as Belinda Carlisle
, two television films starring Patricia Arquette
, and episodes of the series China Beach
and Twin Peaks
.
, she said: "Most often a particular role does you some good and Bang! You have loads of offers, all of them for similar roles ... I have tried to break away from the usual roles and have tried my hand at several things."
She began the decade with The Lemon Sisters
, a poorly received comedy/drama that she starred in and produced, which was shelved
for a year after its completion. In 1991, Keaton starred with Steve Martin
in the family comedy
Father of the Bride
. She was almost not cast in the film, as the commercial failure of The Good Mother had strained her relationship with Walt Disney Pictures
, the studio of both films. Father of the Bride was Keaton's first major hit after four years of commercial disappointments.
Keaton reprised her role four years later in the sequel, as a woman who becomes pregnant in middle age at the same time as her daughter. A review of the film for the San Francisco Examiner was one of many in which Keaton once again received comparison to Katharine Hepburn
: "No longer relying on that stuttering uncertainty that seeped into all her characterizations of the 1970s, she has somehow become Katharine Hepburn with a deep maternal instinct, that is, she is a fine and intelligent actress who doesn't need to be tough and edgy in order to prove her feminism."
Keaton reprised her role of Kay Adams in 1990's The Godfather Part III
. Set 20 years after the end of The Godfather, Part II, Keaton's part had evolved into the estranged ex-wife of Michael Corleone. Criticism of the film and Keaton again centered on her character's unimportance in the film. The Washington Post wrote: "Even though she is authoritative in the role, Keaton suffers tremendously from having no real function except to nag Michael for his past sins." In 1993, Keaton starred in Manhattan Murder Mystery
, her first film with Woody Allen since 1979. Her part was originally intended for Mia Farrow
, but Farrow dropped out of the project after her split with Allen.
In 1995, Keaton directed Unstrung Heroes
, her first theatrically released narrative film. The movie, adapted from Franz Lidz's memoir, starred Nathan Watt as a boy in 1960s whose mother (Andie MacDowell
) becomes ill with cancer. As her sickness advances and his inventor father (John Turturro
) grows increasingly distant, the boy is sent to live with his two eccentric uncles (Maury Chaykin
and Michael Richards
). In a geographic switch, Keaton shifted the story's setting from the New York of Lidz's book to the Southern California of her own childhood. Though it played in a relatively limited release and made little impression at the box office, the film and its direction were well-received critically.
Keaton's most successful film of the decade was the 1996 comedy The First Wives Club
. She starred with Goldie Hawn
and Bette Midler
as a trio of "first wives": middle-aged women who had been divorced by their husbands in favor of younger women. Keaton claimed that making the film "saved[her] life." The film was a major success grossing US$105 million at the North American box office, and it developed a cult
following among middle-aged women. Reviews of the film were generally positive for Keaton and her co-stars, and she was even referred to by The San Francisco Chronicle as "probably[one of] the best comic film actresses alive." In 1997, Keaton, along Hawn and Midler, was a recipient of the Women in Film Crystal Award, which honors "outstanding women who, through their endurance and the excellence of their work, have helped to expand the role of women within the entertainment industry".
Also in 1996, Keaton starred as Bessie, a woman with leukemia
in Marvin's Room, an adaptation of the play by Scott McPherson. Meryl Streep
played her estranged sister Lee, although had initially been considered for the role of Bessie. The film also starred a young Leonardo Di Caprio as Streep's rebellious son. Roger Ebert
stated that "Streep and Keaton, in their different styles, find ways to make Lee and Bessie into much more than the expression of their problems." Keaton earned a third Academy Award nomination for the film. Although critically acclaimed, the film was not released on a wide scale, possibly costing Keaton the Oscar. Keaton said that the biggest challenge of the role was understanding the mentality of a person with terminal illness.
In 1999 Keaton narrated the one-hour public radio documentary, "If I Get Out Alive," the first to focus on the conditions and brutality faced by young people in the adult correctional system. The program, produced by Lichtenstein Creative Media, aired on public radio stations across the country, and was honored with a First Place National Headliner Award and a Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism.
with Meg Ryan
and Lisa Kudrow
. Keaton also directed the film, despite claiming in a 1996 interview that she would never direct herself in a film, saying "as a director, you automatically have different goals. I can't think about directing when I'm acting." The film was a drama about three sisters coping with the senility and eventual death of their elderly father, played by Walter Matthau
. Hanging Up rated poorly with critics and grossed a modest US$36 million at the North American box office.
In 2001, Keaton co-starred with Warren Beatty in Town & Country
, a critical and financial fiasco. Budgeted at an estimated US$90 million, the film opened to little notice and grossed only US$7 million in its North American theatrical run. Peter Travers
of Rolling Stone
claimed that Town & Country was "less deserving of a review than it is an obituary....The corpse took with it the reputations of its starry cast, including Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton." Also in 2001, and 2002, Keaton starred in four low-budget television films. She played a fanatical nun in the religious drama Sister Mary Explains It All
, an impoverished mother in the drama On Thin Ice, and a bookkeeper in the mob
comedy
Plan B. In Crossed Over, she played Beverly Lowry, a woman who forms an unusual friendship with the only woman executed while on death row in Texas, Karla Faye Tucker
.
Keaton's first major hit since 1996 came in 2003's Something's Gotta Give
, directed by Nancy Meyers
and co-starring Jack Nicholson
. Nicholson and Keaton, aged 66 and 57 respectively, were seen as bold casting choices for leads in a romantic comedy. Twentieth Century Fox, the film's original studio, reportedly declined to produce the film, fearing that the lead characters were too old to be bankable. Keaton commented about the situation in Ladies' Home Journal
: "Let's face it, people my age and Jack's age are much deeper, much more soulful, because they've seen a lot of life. They have a great deal of passion and hope--why shouldn't they fall in love? Why shouldn't movies show that?" Keaton played a middle-aged playwright who falls in love with her daughter's much older boyfriend. The film was a major success at the box office, grossing US$125 million in North America. Roger Ebert
wrote that "Nicholson and Keaton bring so much experience, knowledge and humor to their characters that the film works in ways the screenplay might not have even hoped for." The following year, Keaton received her fourth Academy Award nomination for her role in the film.
Keaton's only film between the years of 2004 and 2006 was the comedy The Family Stone
(2005), starring an ensemble cast
that also included Sarah Jessica Parker
, Claire Danes
, Rachel McAdams
, and Craig T. Nelson
. In the film, scripted and directed by Thomas Bezucha
, Keaton played a breast cancer survivor and matriarch of a big New England
family, who reunites at the parents' home for their annual Christmas holidays. The film was released to moderate critical and commercial success, and earned US$92.2 million worldwide. Keaton received her second Satellite Award nomination for her portrayal, on which Peter Travers of Rolling Stone commented, "Keaton, a sorceress at blending humor and heartbreak, honors the film with a grace that makes it stick in the memory."
In 2007, Keaton starred in both Because I Said So
and Mama's Boy. In the romantic comedy Because I Said So, directed by Michael Lehmann
, Keaton played a long-divorced mother of three daughters, determined to pair off her only single daughter Milly, played by Mandy Moore
. Also starring Stephen Collins and Gabriel Macht
, the project opened to overwhelmingly negative reviews by critics, with Wesley Morris
of The Boston Globe calling it "a sloppily made bowl of reheated chick-flick cliches," and was ranked among the worst-reviewed films of the year. The following year, Keaton received her first and only Golden Raspberry Award nomination to date. In Mama's Boy, director Tim Hamilton's feature film debut, Keaton starred as the mother of a self-absorbed 29-year old (played by Jon Heder
) whose world turns upside down when his widowed mother starts dating and considers booting him out of the house. Distributed for a limited release to certain parts of the United States only, the independent comedy garnered largely negative reviews.
In 2008, Keaton starred alongside Dax Shepard
and Liv Tyler
in Vince Di Meglio's dramedy Smother
, playing the overbearing mother of an unemployed therapist, who decides to move in with him and his girlfriend following the split from her husband, played by Ken Howard
. As with Mama's Boy, the film received a limited release only, resulting into minor gross of US$1.8 million worldwide. Critical reaction to the film was generally unfavorable, and once again Keaton was dismissed for her role choices, with Sandra Hall of the New York Post writing, "Diane's career is dyin' [...] this time, sadly, she's gone too far. She's turned herself into a mother-in-law joke." Also in 2008, Keaton appeared alongside Katie Holmes
and Queen Latifah
in the crime-comedy film Mad Money
, directed by Callie Khouri
. Based on the British television drama Hot Money
(2001), the film revolves around three female employees of the Federal Reserve who scheme to steal money that is about to be destroyed. As with Keaton's previous projects, the film bombed at the box offices with a gross total of US$26.4 million, and was universally panned by critics, ranking third in the New York Post Top 10 Worst Movies of 2008 overview.
and Harrison Ford
in Roger Michell
's comedy Morning Glory
, playing the veteran TV host of a fictional morning talk show that desperately needs to boost its lagging ratings. Portraying a narcissistic character that would do anything to please the audience, Keaton described her role as "the kind of woman you love to hate." Inspired by Neil Simon
's 1972 Broadway play The Sunshine Boys
, the film became a moderate success at the box office for a worldwide total of almost $59 million. Though some critics found that Keaton was underused in the film, the actress was generally praised for performance, with James Berardinelli of ReelViews noting that "Diane Keaton is so good at her part that one can see her sliding effortlessly into an anchor's chair on a real morning show."
In fall 2010, Keaton joined the production of the comedy Darling Companion
by Lawrence Kasdan
, which is due to 2012. Co-starring Kevin Kline
and Dianne Wiest
and set in Utah
, the film follows a woman, played by Keaton, whose husband loses her much-beloved dog at a wedding held at their vacation home in the Rocky Mountains
, resulting in a search party to find the pet.
In 2011, Keaton began production on Justin Zackham
's independent ensemble comedy The Big Wedding, in which she, along with Robert De Niro
, will play a long-divorced couple who, for the sake of their adopted son's wedding and his very religious biological mother, pretend they're still married. In addition, Keaton has been cast in the family comedy One Big Happy alongside Steve Martin
, and The Look of Love, an independent romance film, with Ed Harris
.
. Keaton and Allen first met during her audition for the Broadway production of Play It Again, Sam, but they did not know each other personally until having dinner after a late night rehearsal. Allen claims that Keaton's sense of humor attracted him to her. They briefly lived together during the Broadway run of Play It Again, Sam, but their relationship became less formal by the time the film version was produced in 1972. They worked together on eight films between 1971 and 1993.
In 1979, she began dating her Reds co-star Warren Beatty
. Keaton's involvement with Beatty also made her a regular subject of tabloid
magazines and media at the time, a role she was unaccustomed to. (As a result of her avoiding the spotlight, Vanity Fair described her in 1985 as "the most reclusive star since Garbo
".) Beatty and Keaton separated shortly after completing Reds. Their separation was believed to have been caused by the strain of making the film, a troubled production with numerous financial and scheduling problems. Keaton still maintains contact with both Allen and Beatty, and describes Allen as one of her closest friends.
Keaton also had a relationship with Al Pacino
, her co-star in The Godfather Trilogy. The on-again, off-again relationship
ended following the filming of The Godfather Part III. Referring to the relationship, Keaton has said "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 publicly announced that she had given up pursuing romance, and stated, "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 (adopted 2001). Keaton decided to become a mother at the age of 50 after the death of her father, when she began to realize her own mortality. 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."
Raised a Methodist, Keaton stated in an October 2002 television interview with Oxygen that although she currently believes in God, she considered herself an atheist for a period of her life. Woody Allen once said of her, "(She) believes in God, but she also believes that the radio works because there are tiny people inside it".
. 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 also 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 include 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.
Since May 2005, she has been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post
. Since summer 2006, Keaton has been the new face of L'Oréal
.
Keaton has served as a producer on films and television series. She produced the Fox series Pasadena
, that was canceled after airing only four episodes in 2001 but later completed its run on cable
in 2005. In 2003, she produced the Gus Van Sant
drama Elephant, about a school shooting. On 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."
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. She received the Film Society of Lincoln Center
's Gala Tribute in 2007.
Keaton has recently written her first memoir, entitled Then Again. Random House published it and put it on sale on November 15, 2011.
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
. Keaton began her career on stage, and made her screen debut in 1970. Her first major film role was as Kay Adams-Corleone in The Godfather
The Godfather
The Godfather is a 1972 American epic crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the 1969 novel by Mario Puzo. With a screenplay by Puzo, Coppola and an uncredited Robert Towne, the film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard...
(1972), but the films that shaped her early career were those with director and co-star Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
beginning with Play It Again, Sam in 1972. Her next two films with Allen, Sleeper
Sleeper (film)
Sleeper is a 1973 futuristic science fiction comedy film, written by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman, and directed by Allen. The plot involves the adventures of the owner of a Greenwich Village, NY health food store played by Woody Allen who is cryogenically frozen in 1973 and defrosted 200...
(1973) and Love and Death
Love and Death
Love and Death is a 1975 comedy film by Woody Allen. Starring Woody Allen and Diane Keaton, Love and Death is a satirical take on Russian epic novels. Coming in between Sleeper and Annie Hall, Love and Death is in many respects an artistic transition between the two...
(1975), established her as a comic actor. Her fourth, Annie Hall
Annie Hall
Annie Hall is a 1977 American romantic comedy directed by Woody Allen from a screenplay co-written with Marshall Brickman and co-starring Diane Keaton. One of Allen's most popular and most honored films, it won four Academy Awards including Best Picture...
(1977), won her the Academy Award for Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
.
Keaton subsequently expanded her range to avoid becoming typecast as her Annie Hall persona. She became an accomplished dramatic performer, starring in Looking for Mr. Goodbar
Looking for Mr. Goodbar (film)
Looking for Mr. Goodbar is a 1977 film written for the screen and directed by Richard Brooks and starring Diane Keaton, Tuesday Weld, Richard Gere, and also features Tom Berenger...
(1977) and received Academy Award nominations for Reds (1981) and Marvin's Room (1996). Some of her popular later films include Baby Boom
Baby Boom (film)
Baby Boom is a 1987 comedy film starring Diane Keaton. The film also launched a subsequent television show starring Kate Jackson, running from 1988 to 1989. The original music score was composed by Bill Conti and the cinematography was by William A. Fraker....
(1987), Father of the Bride
Father of the Bride (1991 film)
Father of the Bride is a 1991 American comedy film starring Steve Martin, Diane Keaton, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, George Newbern, Martin Short, B.D. Wong and Kieran Culkin. It is a remake of the 1950 movie of the same name...
(1991), The First Wives Club
The First Wives Club
The First Wives Club is a 1996 comedy film, based on the best-selling 1992 novel of the same name by Olivia Goldsmith. Narrated by Diane Keaton, it stars Keaton, Goldie Hawn, and Bette Midler as three divorced women who seek revenge on their husbands who left them for younger women...
(1996), Something's Gotta Give
Something's Gotta Give (film)
Something's Gotta Give is a 2003 American romantic comedy film written, produced and directed by Nancy Meyers for both Columbia Pictures and Warner Bros. It stars Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton as a successful 60-something and 50-something, who find love for each other at a different time of life,...
(2003) and The Family Stone
The Family Stone
The Family Stone is a 2005 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Thomas Bezucha. Produced by Michael London and distributed by 20th Century Fox, it stars an ensemble cast, including Diane Keaton, Craig T. Nelson, Dermot Mulroney, Sarah Jessica Parker, Luke Wilson, Claire Danes, Rachel...
(2005). Films Keaton has been in have earned a cumulative gross of over USD
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
$1.1 billion
1000000000 (number)
1,000,000,000 is the natural number following 999,999,999 and preceding 1,000,000,001.In scientific notation, it is written as 109....
in North America. In addition to acting, she is also a photographer
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
, real estate
Real estate
In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...
developer, author, and occasional singer.
Early life and education
Keaton was born as Diane Hall in Los Angeles, California. Her mother, Dorothy Deanne (néeMarried and maiden names
A married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage. When a person assumes the family name of her spouse, the new name replaces the maiden name....
Keaton; 1921–2008), was a homemaker
Homemaker
Homemaking is a mainly American term for the management of a home, otherwise known as housework, housekeeping or household management...
and amateur photographer, and her father, Jack Newton Ignatius Hall (1921–1990), was a real estate
Real estate
In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...
broker and civil engineer
Civil engineer
A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering; the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructures while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing infrastructures that have been neglected.Originally, a...
. Her father, from Nebraska
Nebraska
Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....
, came from an Irish American Catholic background, and her mother, originally from Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
, came from a Methodist
Methodism
Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...
family. Keaton was raised a Methodist by her mother. Her first ambition to become an actor came after seeing her mother win the "Mrs. Los Angeles" pageant for homemakers. Keaton has said that the theatricality of the event inspired her to become a stage actor. She has also credited Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
, whom she admires for playing strong and independent women, as one of her inspirations.
Keaton is a 1963 graduate of Santa Ana High School
Santa Ana High School
Santa Ana High School is the oldest and largest high school in Orange County, California, United States. The school was established in 1889.-Notable alumni:*Beverly Bivens, singer with the 1960s band We Five*Gerald P...
in Santa Ana, California
Santa Ana, California
Santa Ana is the county seat and second most populous city in Orange County, California, and with a population of 324,528 at the 2010 census, Santa Ana is the 57th-most populous city in the United States....
. During her time there, she participated in singing and acting clubs at school, and starred as Blanche DuBois
Blanche DuBois
Blanche DuBois is a fictional character in Tennessee Williams' 1947 Pulitzer Prize-winning play A Streetcar Named Desire...
in a school production of A Streetcar Named Desire
A Streetcar Named Desire (play)
A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1947 play written by American playwright Tennessee Williams for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948. The play opened on Broadway on December 3, 1947, and closed on December 17, 1949, in the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. The Broadway production was...
. After graduation, she attended Santa Ana College
Santa Ana College
Santa Ana College is a community college located in Santa Ana, California, USA.-History:In 1915, Santa Ana Junior College opened its doors to 25 students as a department of Santa Ana High School. It was the second community college founded in Orange County, behind Fullerton College, and the fourth...
, and later Orange Coast College
Orange Coast College
Orange Coast College is a community college in Orange County, California. It was founded in 1947, with its first classes opening in the fall of 1948. It provides two-year associate of art and science degrees, certificates of achievement, and lower-division classes transferable to other colleges...
as an acting student, but dropped out after a year to pursue an entertainment career in Manhattan. Upon joining the Actors' Equity Association
Actors' Equity Association
The Actors' Equity Association , commonly referred to as Actors' Equity or simply Equity, is an American labor union representing the world of live theatrical performance, as opposed to film and television performance. However, performers appearing on live stage productions without a book or...
, she adopted the surname of Keaton, her mother's maiden name, as there was already a registered Diane Hall. For a brief time, she also moonlighted nightclubs with a singing act. She would later revisit her nightclub act in Annie Hall
Annie Hall
Annie Hall is a 1977 American romantic comedy directed by Woody Allen from a screenplay co-written with Marshall Brickman and co-starring Diane Keaton. One of Allen's most popular and most honored films, it won four Academy Awards including Best Picture...
(1977) and a cameo in Radio Days
Radio Days
Radio Days is a 1987 comedy film directed by Woody Allen. The film looks back on an American family's life during the Golden Age of Radio using both music and memories to tell the story.-Plot:...
(1987).
Keaton began studying acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse
Neighborhood Playhouse
The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre is an actor training school at 340 East 54th Street in New York City, generally associated with the Meisner technique of Sanford Meisner.-History:...
in New York City. She initially studied acting under the Meisner technique
Meisner technique
The Meisner technique is an acting technique developed by the American theatre practitioner Sanford Meisner.Meisner developed this technique after working with Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler at the Group Theatre and as head of the acting program at New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse and...
, an ensemble
Ensemble cast
An ensemble cast is made up of cast members in which the principal actors and performers are assigned roughly equal amounts of importance and screen time in a dramatic production. This kind of casting became more popular in television series because it allows flexibility for writers to focus on...
acting technique first evolved in the 1930s by Sanford Meisner
Sanford Meisner
Sanford Meisner , also known as Sandy, was an American actor and acting teacher who developed a form of Method acting that is now known as the Meisner technique....
, a New York stage actor/acting coach/director who had been a member of The Group Theater (1931–1940). She has described her acting technique as, "
Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty born March 30, 1937) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director. He has received a total of fourteen Academy Award nominations, winning one for Best Director in 1982. He has also won four Golden Globe Awards including the Cecil B. DeMille Award.-Early life and...
, "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."
In 1968, Keaton became a member of the "Tribe" and understudy to Sheila in the original Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
production of Hair
Hair (musical)
Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical is a rock musical with a book and lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni and music by Galt MacDermot. A product of the hippie counter-culture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, several of its songs became anthems of the anti-Vietnam War peace movement...
. 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). After acting in Hair for nine months, she auditioned for a part in Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
's production of Play It Again, Sam. After nearly being passed over for being too tall (at 5 ft 8 in./1.73 m she is two inches/5 cm taller than Allen), she won the part.
1970s
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
for Play It Again, Sam, Keaton made her film debut in 1970's Lovers and Other Strangers
Lovers and Other Strangers
Lovers and Other Strangers is a 1970 comedy film based on the play by Renee Taylor and Joseph Bologna. The film features an ensemble cast including Richard Castellano, Gig Young, Cloris Leachman, Anne Jackson, Beatrice Arthur, Bonnie Bedelia, Michael Brandon, Harry Guardino, Anne Meara, Bob Dishy,...
. She followed with guest roles on the television series Love, American Style
Love, American Style
Love, American Style is an hour-long TV anthology produced by Paramount Television and originally aired between September 1969 and January 1974...
and Night Gallery
Night Gallery
Night Gallery is an American anthology series that aired on NBC from 1970 to 1973, featuring stories of horror and the macabre. Rod Serling, who had gained fame from an earlier series, The Twilight Zone, served both as the on-air host of Night Gallery and as a major contributor of scripts, although...
. Between films, Keaton appeared in a series of deodorant
Deodorant
Deodorants are substances applied to the body to affect body odor caused by bacterial growth and the smell associated with bacterial breakdown of perspiration in armpits, feet and other areas of the body. A subgroup of deodorants, antiperspirants, affect odor as well as prevent sweating by...
commercials.
Keaton's breakthrough role came two years later when she was cast as Kay Adams, the girlfriend of Michael Corleone
Michael Corleone
Michael Corleone is a fictional character in Mario Puzo's novels, The Godfather and The Sicilian. He is also the main character of the Godfather film trilogy that was directed by Francis Ford Coppola, in which he was portrayed by Al Pacino, who was twice nominated for an Academy Award for his...
(played by Al Pacino
Al Pacino
Alfredo James "Al" Pacino is an American film and stage actor and director. He is famous for playing mobsters, including Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy, Tony Montana in Scarface, Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice in Dick Tracy and Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way, though he has also appeared...
) in Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
's 1972 blockbuster The Godfather
The Godfather
The Godfather is a 1972 American epic crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the 1969 novel by Mario Puzo. With a screenplay by Puzo, Coppola and an uncredited Robert Towne, the film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard...
. Coppola noted that he first noticed Keaton in Lovers and Other Strangers, and cast her because of her reputation for eccentricity
Eccentricity (behavior)
In popular usage, eccentricity refers to unusual or odd behavior on the part of an individual. This behavior would typically be perceived as unusual or unnecessary, without being demonstrably maladaptive...
that he wanted her to bring to the role (Keaton claims that at the time she was commonly referred to as "the kooky actress" of the film industry). Her performance in the film was loosely based on her real life experience of making the film, both of which she has described as being "the woman in a world of men". The Godfather was an unparalleled critical and financial success, becoming the highest grossing film of the year and winning the Best Picture Oscar of 1972.
Two years later she reprised her role as Kay Adams in The Godfather Part II
The Godfather Part II
The Godfather Part II is a 1974 American gangster film directed by Francis Ford Coppola from a script co-written with Mario Puzo. The film is both a sequel and a prequel to The Godfather, chronicling the story of the Corleone family following the events of the first film while also depicting the...
. She was initially reluctant, stating that, "At first, I was skeptical about playing Kay again in the Godfather sequel. But when I read the script, the character seemed much more substantial than in the first movie." In Part II her character changed dramatically, becoming more embittered about her husband's activities. Even though Keaton received widespread exposure from the films, her character's importance was minimal. Time wrote that she was "invisible in The Godfather and pallid in The Godfather, Part II."
Keaton's other notable films of the 1970s included many collaborations with Woody Allen. Although by the time they made films together, their romantic involvement had ended, she played many eccentric characters in several of his comic and dramatic films including Sleeper
Sleeper (film)
Sleeper is a 1973 futuristic science fiction comedy film, written by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman, and directed by Allen. The plot involves the adventures of the owner of a Greenwich Village, NY health food store played by Woody Allen who is cryogenically frozen in 1973 and defrosted 200...
, Love and Death
Love and Death
Love and Death is a 1975 comedy film by Woody Allen. Starring Woody Allen and Diane Keaton, Love and Death is a satirical take on Russian epic novels. Coming in between Sleeper and Annie Hall, Love and Death is in many respects an artistic transition between the two...
, Interiors
Interiors
Interiors is a 1978 drama film written and directed by Woody Allen. Featured performers are Kristin Griffith, Mary Beth Hurt, Richard Jordan, Diane Keaton, E. G. Marshall, Geraldine Page, Maureen Stapleton and Sam Waterston....
, Manhattan
Manhattan (film)
Manhattan is a 1979 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Woody Allen about a twice-divorced 42-year-old comedy writer who dates a 17-year-old girl before eventually falling in love with his best friend's mistress...
, and the film version of Play It Again, Sam, directed by Herbert Ross
Herbert Ross
Herbert Ross was an American film director, producer, choreographer and actor.-Early life and career:Born Herbert David Ross in Brooklyn, New York, he made his stage debut as Third Witch with a touring company of Macbeth in 1942...
. Allen has credited Keaton as his muse during his early film career.
In 1977, Keaton starred with Allen in the romantic comedy
Romantic Comedy
Romantic Comedy can refer to* Romantic Comedy , a 1979 play written by Bernard Slade* Romantic Comedy , a 1983 film adapted from the play and starring Dudley Moore and Mary Steenburgen...
Annie Hall
Annie Hall
Annie Hall is a 1977 American romantic comedy directed by Woody Allen from a screenplay co-written with Marshall Brickman and co-starring Diane Keaton. One of Allen's most popular and most honored films, it won four Academy Awards including Best Picture...
, one of her most famous roles. Annie Hall was written and directed by Allen and the film was believed to be autobiographical of his relationship with Keaton. Allen based the character of Annie Hall loosely on Keaton ("Annie" is a nickname of hers, and "Hall" is her original surname). Many of Keaton's mannerisms and her self-deprecating sense of humor were added into the role by Allen. (Director Nancy Meyers
Nancy Meyers
Nancy Jane Meyers is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. She is the writer, producer and director of several big-screen successes, including The Parent Trap , Something's Gotta Give , The Holiday , and It's Complicated...
has claimed "Diane's the most self-deprecating person alive".) Keaton has also said that Allen wrote the character as an "idealized version" of herself. The two starred as a frequently on-again, off-again couple living in New York City. Her acting was later summed up by CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
as "awkward, self-deprecating, speaking in endearing little whirlwinds of semi-logic", and by Allen as a "nervous breakdown in slow motion." The film was both a major financial and critical success, and won the Academy Award
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
for Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
. Keaton's performance also won the Academy Award for Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
. In 2006, Premiere
Premiere (magazine)
Premiere was an American and New York City-based film magazine published by Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., published between the years 1987 and 2007. The original version of the magazine, Première , was started in France in 1976 and is still being published there.-History:The magazine originally...
magazine ranked Keaton in Annie Hall as 60th on their list of the "100 Greatest Performances of All Time":
It's hard to play ditzy. ... The genius of Annie is that despite her loopy backhand, awful driving, and nervous tics, she's also a complicated, intelligent woman. Keaton brilliantly displays this dichotomy of her character, especially when she yammers away on a first date with Alvy (Woody Allen) while the subtitle reads, 'He probably thinks I'm a yoyo.' Yo-yo ? Hardly.
Keaton's eccentric wardrobe in Annie Hall, which consisted mainly of vintage men's clothing, including neckties, vest
Vest
A vest is a garment covering the upper body. The term has different meanings around the world:Waistcoat :. This is called a waistcoat in the UK and many Commonwealth countries, or a vest in the US and Canada. It is often worn as part of formal attire, or as the third piece of a lounge...
s, baggy pants, and fedora
Fedora (hat)
A fedora is a men's felt hat. In reality, "fedora" describes most any men's hat that does not already have another name; quite a few fedoras have famous names of their own including the famous Trilby....
hats, made her an unlikely fashion icon of the late 1970s. Most of the clothing seen in the film came from Keaton herself, who was already known for her tomboy
Tomboy
A tomboy is a girl who exhibits characteristics or behaviors considered typical of the gender role of a boy, including the wearing of typically masculine-oriented clothes and engaging in games and activities that are often physical in nature, and which are considered in many cultures to be the...
ish clothing style years before Annie Hall, though Ruth Morley and Ralph Lauren
Ralph Lauren
Ralph Lauren is an American fashion designer and business executive; best known for his Polo Ralph Lauren clothing brand.-Early life:...
reportedly worked on the movie's costume. Soon after the film's release, men's clothing and pantsuits became popular attire for women. She is known to favor men's vintage clothing
Vintage clothing
Vintage clothing is a generic term for new or second hand garments originating from a previous era. The phrase is also used in connection with a retail outlet, e.g...
, and usually appears in public wearing gloves and conservative attire. (A 2005 profile in the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
described her as "easy to find. Look for the only woman in sight dressed in a turtleneck on a 90-degree afternoon in Pasadena.) Keaton would later reprise her Annie Hall appearance when she attended the 2003 Academy Awards presentation in a men's tuxedo
Black tie
Black tie is a dress code for evening events and social functions. For a man, the main component is a usually black jacket, known as a dinner jacket or tuxedo...
and a bowler hat
Bowler hat
The bowler hat, also known as a coke hat, derby , billycock or bombin, is a hard felt hat with a rounded crown originally created in 1849 for the English soldier and politician Edward Coke, the younger brother of the 2nd Earl of Leicester...
.
Her photo by Douglas Kirkland
Douglas Kirkland
Douglas Kirkland is a prominent photographer based in the United States. At age twenty-four, Kirkland was hired as a staff photographer for Look magazine and became famous for his 1961 photos of Marilyn Monroe taken for Look's 25th anniversary issue...
appeared on the cover of the September 26, 1977, issue Time magazine with the story dubbing her "the funniest woman now working in films." Later that year, she departed from her usual lighthearted comic roles when she won the highly coveted lead role in the drama Looking for Mr. Goodbar
Looking for Mr. Goodbar (film)
Looking for Mr. Goodbar is a 1977 film written for the screen and directed by Richard Brooks and starring Diane Keaton, Tuesday Weld, Richard Gere, and also features Tom Berenger...
, based on the novel
Looking for Mr. Goodbar
Looking for Mr. Goodbar is a 1975 novel by Judith Rossner. Rossner based the novel on the events surrounding the brutal murder of Roseann Quinn, a 28-year-old New York City schoolteacher in 1973.-References:...
by Judith Rossner
Judith Rossner
Judith Perelman Rossner was an American novelist, best known for her 1975 novel Looking for Mr. Goodbar, which was inspired by the murder of Roseann Quinn and examined the underside of the seventies sexual liberation movement. Though Looking for Mr. Goodbar remained Rossner's best known and best...
. In the film she played a Catholic schoolteacher for deaf children who lives a double life, spending nights frequenting singles bars and engaging in promiscuous sex. Keaton became interested in the role after seeing it as a "psychological case history." The same issue of Time commended her role choice and criticized the restricted roles available for female actors in American films:
A male actor can fly a plane, fight a war, shoot a badman, pull off a sting, impersonate a big cheese in business or politics. Men are presumed to be interesting. A female can play a wife, play a whore, get pregnant, lose her baby, and, um, let's see ... Women are presumed to be dull. ... Now a determined trend spotter can point to a handful of new films whose makers think that women can bear the dramatic weight of a production alone, or virtually so. Then there is Diane Keaton in Looking for Mr. Goodbar. As Theresa Dunn, Keaton dominates this raunchy, risky, violent dramatization of Judith Rossner's 1975 novel about a schoolteacher who cruises singles bars.
In addition to acting, Keaton has stated that "
Keaton met with more success in the medium of still photography. Like her character in Annie Hall, Keaton had long relished photography as a favorite hobby, an interest she picked up as a teenager from her mother. While traveling in the late 1970s she began exploring her avocation more seriously. "Rolling Stone had asked me to take photographs for them, and I thought, 'Wait a minute, what I'm really interested in is these lobbies, and these strange ballrooms in these old hotels.' So I began shooting them", she recalled in 2003. "These places were deserted, and I could just sneak in anytime and nobody cared. It was so easy and I could do it myself. It was an adventure for me." Reservations, her collection of photos of hotel interiors, was published in book form in 1980.
1980s
Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty born March 30, 1937) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director. He has received a total of fourteen Academy Award nominations, winning one for Best Director in 1982. He has also won four Golden Globe Awards including the Cecil B. DeMille Award.-Early life and...
, and two years later he cast her to play opposite him in Reds. In the film, she played Louise Bryant
Louise Bryant
Louise Bryant was an American journalist and writer. She was best known for her Marxist and anarchist beliefs and her essays on radical political and feminist themes. Bryant published articles in several radical left journals during her life, including Alexander Berkman's The Blast...
, a journalist and feminist, who flees from her husband to work with radical journalist John Reed
John Silas Reed
John Silas "Jack" Reed was an American journalist, poet, and communist activist, best remembered for his first-hand account of the Bolshevik Revolution, Ten Days that Shook the World...
(Beatty), and later enters Russia to locate him as he chronicles the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
. The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote that Keaton was, "nothing less than splendid as Louise Bryant – beautiful, selfish, funny and driven. It's the best work she has done to date." Keaton received her second Academy Award nomination for the film.
Beatty cast Keaton after seeing her in Annie Hall, as he wanted to bring her natural nervousness and insecure attitude to the role. The production of Reds was delayed several times since its conception in 1977, and Keaton almost left the project when she believed it would never be produced. Filming finally began two years later. In a 2006 Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
story, Keaton described her role as "the everyman of that piece, as someone who wanted to be extraordinary but was probably more ordinary ... I knew what it felt like to be extremely insecure." Assistant director
Assistant director
The role of an Assistant director include tracking daily progress against the filming production schedule, arranging logistics, preparing daily call sheets, checking cast and crew, maintaining order on the set. They also have to take care of health and safety of the crew...
Simon Relph later stated that Louise Bryant was one of her most difficult roles, and that "
1984 brought The Little Drummer Girl
The Little Drummer Girl (film)
The Little Drummer Girl is a 1984 American spy film directed by George Roy Hill and adapted from the 1983 novel The Little Drummer Girl by John le Carré. It starred Diane Keaton, Yorgo Voyagis, Klaus Kinski and Thorley Walters....
, Keaton's first excursion into the thriller and action genre. The Little Drummer Girl was both a financial and critical failure, with critics claiming that Keaton was miscast for the genre, such as one review from The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
claiming that "the title role, the pivotal role, is played by Diane Keaton, and around her the picture collapses in tatters. She is so feeble, so inappropriate." However, that same year she received positive reviews for her performance in Mrs. Soffel
Mrs. Soffel
Mrs. Soffel is a 1984 American film drama based on the true Buck McGovern and the Biddle Boys case of 1901 Pittsburgh, starring Diane Keaton and Mel Gibson. It was filmed on location in and around the Serez family Farm in Mulmer Ontario, as well as Wisconsin and establishing shots in Pittsburgh...
, a film based on the true story of a repressed prison warden's wife who falls in love with a convicted murderer and arranges for his escape. Two years later she starred with Jessica Lange
Jessica Lange
Jessica Phyllis Lange is an American actress who has worked in film, theatre and television. The recipient of several awards, including two Academy Awards, four Golden Globes and one Emmy, Lange is regarded as one of the première female actors of her generation.Lange was discovered by producer...
and Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...
in Crimes of the Heart
Crimes of the Heart (film)
Crimes of the Heart is a 1986 American black comedy film directed by Bruce Beresford. The screenplay by Beth Henley is adapted from her Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name.-Plot:...
, adapted from Beth Henley
Beth Henley
Elizabeth Becker "Beth" Henley is an American dramatist and actress. She writes primarily about women's issues and family in the Southern United States. She is also a screenwriter who has written many film adaptations of her plays...
's Pulitzer Prize-winning play into a moderately successful screen comedy. She starred in her first commercial vehicle with 1987's Baby Boom
Baby Boom (film)
Baby Boom is a 1987 comedy film starring Diane Keaton. The film also launched a subsequent television show starring Kate Jackson, running from 1988 to 1989. The original music score was composed by Bill Conti and the cinematography was by William A. Fraker....
, her first of four collaborations with writer-producer Nancy Meyers
Nancy Meyers
Nancy Jane Meyers is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. She is the writer, producer and director of several big-screen successes, including The Parent Trap , Something's Gotta Give , The Holiday , and It's Complicated...
. In Baby Boom, Keaton starred as a Manhattan career woman who is suddenly forced to care for a toddler. That same year she made a cameo in Allen's film Radio Days
Radio Days
Radio Days is a 1987 comedy film directed by Woody Allen. The film looks back on an American family's life during the Golden Age of Radio using both music and memories to tell the story.-Plot:...
as a nightclub singer. 1988's The Good Mother was a misstep for Keaton. The film was a financial disappointment (according to Keaton, the film was "a Big Failure. Like, BIG failure"), and some critics panned her performance, such was one review from The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
: "her acting degenerates into hype – as if she's trying to sell an idea she can't fully believe in."
In 1987, Keaton directed and edited her first feature film, a documentary named Heaven about the possibility of an afterlife
Afterlife
The afterlife is the belief that a part of, or essence of, or soul of an individual, which carries with it and confers personal identity, survives the death of the body of this world and this lifetime, by natural or supernatural means, in contrast to the belief in eternal...
. Heaven met with mixed critical reaction, with The New York Times likening it to "a conceit imposed on its subjects." Over the next four years, Keaton went on to direct music videos for artists such as Belinda Carlisle
Belinda Carlisle
Belinda Jo Carlisle is an American singer who gained worldwide fame as the lead vocalist of the Go-Go's, one of the most successful all-female bands and the first such group whose members wrote their own songs and played their own instruments...
, two television films starring Patricia Arquette
Patricia Arquette
Patricia T. Arquette is an American actress and director. She played the lead character in the supernatural drama series Medium for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series....
, and episodes of the series China Beach
China Beach
China Beach is an American dramatic television series set at an evacuation hospital during the Vietnam War. The title refers to My Khe beach in the city of Da Nang, Vietnam, which was nicknamed "China Beach" by unknown foreigners, most likely Americans...
and Twin Peaks
Twin Peaks
Twin Peaks is an American television serial drama created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. The series follows the investigation headed by FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper , of the murder of a popular teenager and homecoming queen, Laura Palmer...
.
1990s
By the 1990s, Keaton had established herself as one of the most popular and versatile actors in Hollywood. Now middle-aged, she shifted to more mature roles, frequently playing matriarchs of middle-class families. Of her role choices and avoidance of becoming typecastTypecasting (acting)
In TV, film, and theatre, typecasting is the process by which a particular actor becomes strongly identified with a specific character; one or more particular roles; or, characters having the same traits or coming from the same social or ethnic groups...
, she said: "Most often a particular role does you some good and Bang! You have loads of offers, all of them for similar roles ... I have tried to break away from the usual roles and have tried my hand at several things."
She began the decade with The Lemon Sisters
The Lemon Sisters
The Lemon Sisters is a 1990 American film from Miramax Films directed by Joyce Chopra and written by Jeremy Pikser. The film was both a commercial and critical failure after being shelved for more than a year with extensive revisions.-Plot:...
, a poorly received comedy/drama that she starred in and produced, which was shelved
Shelved
In politics, the term can be used for policy drafts, that have never been officially brought into legislation.In the film industry, a film is considered shelved if it is not released for public viewing after filming has started, or even completed....
for a year after its completion. In 1991, Keaton starred with Steve Martin
Steve Martin
Stephen Glenn "Steve" Martin is an American actor, comedian, writer, playwright, producer, musician and composer....
in the family comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
Father of the Bride
Father of the Bride (1991 film)
Father of the Bride is a 1991 American comedy film starring Steve Martin, Diane Keaton, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, George Newbern, Martin Short, B.D. Wong and Kieran Culkin. It is a remake of the 1950 movie of the same name...
. She was almost not cast in the film, as the commercial failure of The Good Mother had strained her relationship with Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...
, the studio of both films. Father of the Bride was Keaton's first major hit after four years of commercial disappointments.
Keaton reprised her role four years later in the sequel, as a woman who becomes pregnant in middle age at the same time as her daughter. A review of the film for the San Francisco Examiner was one of many in which Keaton once again received comparison to Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
: "No longer relying on that stuttering uncertainty that seeped into all her characterizations of the 1970s, she has somehow become Katharine Hepburn with a deep maternal instinct, that is, she is a fine and intelligent actress who doesn't need to be tough and edgy in order to prove her feminism."
Keaton reprised her role of Kay Adams in 1990's The Godfather Part III
The Godfather Part III
The Godfather Part III is a 1990 American gangster film written by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola, and directed by Coppola. It completes the story of Michael Corleone, a Mafia kingpin who tries to legitimize his criminal empire...
. Set 20 years after the end of The Godfather, Part II, Keaton's part had evolved into the estranged ex-wife of Michael Corleone. Criticism of the film and Keaton again centered on her character's unimportance in the film. The Washington Post wrote: "Even though she is authoritative in the role, Keaton suffers tremendously from having no real function except to nag Michael for his past sins." In 1993, Keaton starred in Manhattan Murder Mystery
Manhattan Murder Mystery
Manhattan Murder Mystery is a comedic murder mystery film directed by and starring Woody Allen and written by Marshall Brickman and Woody Allen.-Plot:...
, her first film with Woody Allen since 1979. Her part was originally intended for Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow is an American actress, singer, humanitarian, and fashion model.Farrow first gained wide acclaim for her role as Allison Mackenzie in the soap opera Peyton Place, and for her subsequent short-lived marriage to Frank Sinatra...
, but Farrow dropped out of the project after her split with Allen.
In 1995, Keaton directed Unstrung Heroes
Unstrung Heroes
Unstrung Heroes is a 1995 American comedy-drama film directed by Diane Keaton. The screenplay by Richard LaGravenese is based on a memoir by journalist Franz Lidz.-Plot synopsis:...
, her first theatrically released narrative film. The movie, adapted from Franz Lidz's memoir, starred Nathan Watt as a boy in 1960s whose mother (Andie MacDowell
Andie MacDowell
Rosalie Anderson "Andie" MacDowell is an American model and actress. She has received the Golden Camera and an Honorary César.-Early life:...
) becomes ill with cancer. As her sickness advances and his inventor father (John Turturro
John Turturro
John Michael Turturro is an American actor, writer and director known for his roles in the films Do the Right Thing , Miller's Crossing , Barton Fink , Quiz Show , The Big Lebowski , O Brother, Where Art Thou? and the Transformers film series...
) grows increasingly distant, the boy is sent to live with his two eccentric uncles (Maury Chaykin
Maury Chaykin
Maury Alan Chaykin was an American-born Canadian actor. Best known for his portrayal of detective Nero Wolfe, he was also known for his work as a character actor in many films and on television programs.-Personal life:...
and Michael Richards
Michael Richards
Michael Anthony Richards is an American actor, comedian, writer and television producer, best known for his portrayal of the eccentric Cosmo Kramer on the television sitcom Seinfeld....
). In a geographic switch, Keaton shifted the story's setting from the New York of Lidz's book to the Southern California of her own childhood. Though it played in a relatively limited release and made little impression at the box office, the film and its direction were well-received critically.
Keaton's most successful film of the decade was the 1996 comedy The First Wives Club
The First Wives Club
The First Wives Club is a 1996 comedy film, based on the best-selling 1992 novel of the same name by Olivia Goldsmith. Narrated by Diane Keaton, it stars Keaton, Goldie Hawn, and Bette Midler as three divorced women who seek revenge on their husbands who left them for younger women...
. She starred with Goldie Hawn
Goldie Hawn
Goldie Jeanne Hawn is an American actress, film director, producer, and occasional singer. Hawn is known for her roles in Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, Private Benjamin, Foul Play, Overboard, Bird on a Wire, Death Becomes Her, The First Wives Club, and Cactus Flower, for which she won the 1969...
and Bette Midler
Bette Midler
Bette Midler is an American singer, actress, and comedian, also known by her informal stage name, The Divine Miss M. She became famous as a cabaret and concert headliner, and went on to star in successful and acclaimed films such as The Rose, Ruthless People, Beaches, and For The Boys...
as a trio of "first wives": middle-aged women who had been divorced by their husbands in favor of younger women. Keaton claimed that making the film "saved
Cult film
A cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences...
following among middle-aged women. Reviews of the film were generally positive for Keaton and her co-stars, and she was even referred to by The San Francisco Chronicle as "probably
Also in 1996, Keaton starred as Bessie, a woman with leukemia
Leukemia
Leukemia or leukaemia is a type of cancer of the blood or bone marrow characterized by an abnormal increase of immature white blood cells called "blasts". Leukemia is a broad term covering a spectrum of diseases...
in Marvin's Room, an adaptation of the play by Scott McPherson. Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...
played her estranged sister Lee, although had initially been considered for the role of Bessie. The film also starred a young Leonardo Di Caprio as Streep's rebellious son. Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
stated that "Streep and Keaton, in their different styles, find ways to make Lee and Bessie into much more than the expression of their problems." Keaton earned a third Academy Award nomination for the film. Although critically acclaimed, the film was not released on a wide scale, possibly costing Keaton the Oscar. Keaton said that the biggest challenge of the role was understanding the mentality of a person with terminal illness.
In 1999 Keaton narrated the one-hour public radio documentary, "If I Get Out Alive," the first to focus on the conditions and brutality faced by young people in the adult correctional system. The program, produced by Lichtenstein Creative Media, aired on public radio stations across the country, and was honored with a First Place National Headliner Award and a Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism.
2000s
Keaton's first film of 2000 was Hanging UpHanging Up
Hanging Up is a 2000 American comedy-drama film about a trio of sisters who bond over their ambivalence toward the approaching death of their curmudgeonly father, to whom none of them were particularly close...
with Meg Ryan
Meg Ryan
Margaret Mary Emily Anne Hyra , professionally known as Meg Ryan, is an American actress and producer. Raised in Bethel, Connecticut, Ryan began her acting career in 1981 in minor roles, before joining the cast of the CBS soap opera As the World Turns in 1982...
and Lisa Kudrow
Lisa Kudrow
Lisa Valerie Kudrow is an American actress, best known for her role as Phoebe Buffay in the television sitcom Friends, for which she received many accolades including an Emmy Award and two Screen Actors Guild Awards...
. Keaton also directed the film, despite claiming in a 1996 interview that she would never direct herself in a film, saying "as a director, you automatically have different goals. I can't think about directing when I'm acting." The film was a drama about three sisters coping with the senility and eventual death of their elderly father, played by Walter Matthau
Walter Matthau
Walter Matthau was an American actor best known for his role as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple and his frequent collaborations with Odd Couple star Jack Lemmon, as well as his role as Coach Buttermaker in the 1976 comedy The Bad News Bears...
. Hanging Up rated poorly with critics and grossed a modest US$36 million at the North American box office.
In 2001, Keaton co-starred with Warren Beatty in Town & Country
Town & Country (film)
Town & Country is a 2001 film starring Goldie Hawn, Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton and Garry Shandling and directed by Peter Chelsom. It is a romantic comedy in which Beatty plays New York City architect Porter Stoddard, with Keaton as his wife and Hawn and Shandling as their best friends. It holds...
, a critical and financial fiasco. Budgeted at an estimated US$90 million, the film opened to little notice and grossed only US$7 million in its North American theatrical run. Peter Travers
Peter Travers
Peter Travers is an American film critic, who has written for, in turn, People and Rolling Stone. Travers also hosts a celebrity interview show called Popcorn on ABC News Now and ABCNews.com.-Career:...
of Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
claimed that Town & Country was "less deserving of a review than it is an obituary....The corpse took with it the reputations of its starry cast, including Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton." Also in 2001, and 2002, Keaton starred in four low-budget television films. She played a fanatical nun in the religious drama Sister Mary Explains It All
Sister Mary Explains It All
Sister Mary Explains It All is a 2001 satirical dark comedy film written by Christopher Durang and directed by Marshall Brickman. The film, based upon Durang's 1979 play Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You, and starring Diane Keaton in the title role, premiered on the Showtime network.-...
, an impoverished mother in the drama On Thin Ice, and a bookkeeper in the mob
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
Plan B. In Crossed Over, she played Beverly Lowry, a woman who forms an unusual friendship with the only woman executed while on death row in Texas, Karla Faye Tucker
Karla Faye Tucker
Karla Faye Tucker was convicted of murder in Texas in 1984 and put to death in 1998. She was the first woman to be executed in the United States since 1984, and the first in Texas since 1863...
.
Keaton's first major hit since 1996 came in 2003's Something's Gotta Give
Something's Gotta Give (film)
Something's Gotta Give is a 2003 American romantic comedy film written, produced and directed by Nancy Meyers for both Columbia Pictures and Warner Bros. It stars Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton as a successful 60-something and 50-something, who find love for each other at a different time of life,...
, directed by Nancy Meyers
Nancy Meyers
Nancy Jane Meyers is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. She is the writer, producer and director of several big-screen successes, including The Parent Trap , Something's Gotta Give , The Holiday , and It's Complicated...
and co-starring Jack Nicholson
Jack Nicholson
John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the...
. Nicholson and Keaton, aged 66 and 57 respectively, were seen as bold casting choices for leads in a romantic comedy. Twentieth Century Fox, the film's original studio, reportedly declined to produce the film, fearing that the lead characters were too old to be bankable. Keaton commented about the situation in Ladies' Home Journal
Ladies' Home Journal
Ladies' Home Journal is an American magazine which first appeared on February 16, 1883, and eventually became one of the leading women's magazines of the 20th century in the United States...
: "Let's face it, people my age and Jack's age are much deeper, much more soulful, because they've seen a lot of life. They have a great deal of passion and hope--why shouldn't they fall in love? Why shouldn't movies show that?" Keaton played a middle-aged playwright who falls in love with her daughter's much older boyfriend. The film was a major success at the box office, grossing US$125 million in North America. Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
wrote that "Nicholson and Keaton bring so much experience, knowledge and humor to their characters that the film works in ways the screenplay might not have even hoped for." The following year, Keaton received her fourth Academy Award nomination for her role in the film.
Keaton's only film between the years of 2004 and 2006 was the comedy The Family Stone
The Family Stone
The Family Stone is a 2005 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Thomas Bezucha. Produced by Michael London and distributed by 20th Century Fox, it stars an ensemble cast, including Diane Keaton, Craig T. Nelson, Dermot Mulroney, Sarah Jessica Parker, Luke Wilson, Claire Danes, Rachel...
(2005), starring an ensemble cast
Ensemble cast
An ensemble cast is made up of cast members in which the principal actors and performers are assigned roughly equal amounts of importance and screen time in a dramatic production. This kind of casting became more popular in television series because it allows flexibility for writers to focus on...
that also included Sarah Jessica Parker
Sarah Jessica Parker
Sarah Jessica Parker is an American film, television, and theater actress and producer.She is best known for her leading role as Carrie Bradshaw on the HBO television series Sex and the City , for which she won four Golden Globe Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and two Emmy Awards...
, Claire Danes
Claire Danes
Claire Catherine Danes is an American actress of television, stage and film. She has appeared in roles as diverse as Angela Chase in My So-Called Life, as Juliet in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, as Kate Brewster in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, as Yvaine in Stardust and as Temple Grandin in...
, Rachel McAdams
Rachel McAdams
Rachel Anne McAdams is a Canadian actress. After graduating from a theatre program at York University, Toronto in 2001, she worked steadily as an actress until finding fame in 2004 with starring roles in teen comedy Mean Girls and romantic drama The Notebook...
, and Craig T. Nelson
Craig T. Nelson
Craig Theodore Nelson is an American actor. He is probably best known for his Emmy-winning roles as Hayden Fox on the TV series Coach, and as Steve Freeling in the 1982 film Poltergeist. He also starred in The Incredibles in 2004 as Mr...
. In the film, scripted and directed by Thomas Bezucha
Thomas Bezucha
Thomas Gordon Bezucha is an American screenwriter and director.He wrote and directed Big Eden and The Family Stone . He is a graduate of Amherst Regional High School in Amherst, Massachusetts. He will next direct Monte Carlo, which he co-wrote with April Blair.Bezucha is openly gay.-External...
, Keaton played a breast cancer survivor and matriarch of a big New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
family, who reunites at the parents' home for their annual Christmas holidays. The film was released to moderate critical and commercial success, and earned US$92.2 million worldwide. Keaton received her second Satellite Award nomination for her portrayal, on which Peter Travers of Rolling Stone commented, "Keaton, a sorceress at blending humor and heartbreak, honors the film with a grace that makes it stick in the memory."
In 2007, Keaton starred in both Because I Said So
Because I Said So (film)
Because I Said So is a 2007 romantic comedy film directed by Michael Lehmann and starring Diane Keaton, Mandy Moore, Lauren Graham, Piper Perabo and Stephen Collins. It was released on February 2, 2007.-Plot:...
and Mama's Boy. In the romantic comedy Because I Said So, directed by Michael Lehmann
Michael Lehmann
Michael Stephen Lehmann is an American film and television director.Lehmann attended Columbia University. His first job in the film industry was answering phones at Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope film company. Later he supervised cameras on films that included 1983's The Outsiders...
, Keaton played a long-divorced mother of three daughters, determined to pair off her only single daughter Milly, played by Mandy Moore
Mandy Moore
Amanda Leigh "Mandy" Moore is an American singer-songwriter, actress and fashion designer. Moore became famous as a teenager in the late 1990s, after the release of her teen pop albums So Real, I Wanna Be with You, and Mandy Moore. In 2007, she took an adult pop-folk direction with the release of...
. Also starring Stephen Collins and Gabriel Macht
Gabriel Macht
Gabriel S. Macht is an American actor. Macht is known for playing The Spirit in the film of the same name, and lately for his role as Harvey Specter on the USA Network series Suits.-Personal life:...
, the project opened to overwhelmingly negative reviews by critics, with Wesley Morris
Wesley Morris
Wesley Morris is a film critic at The Boston Globe where he reviews films alongside Ty Burr. Morris and Burr also make regular appearances on NECN to discuss the latest films and do the weekly Take Two film review video series on Boston.com...
of The Boston Globe calling it "a sloppily made bowl of reheated chick-flick cliches," and was ranked among the worst-reviewed films of the year. The following year, Keaton received her first and only Golden Raspberry Award nomination to date. In Mama's Boy, director Tim Hamilton's feature film debut, Keaton starred as the mother of a self-absorbed 29-year old (played by Jon Heder
Jon Heder
Jonathan Joseph "Jon" Heder is an American screenwriter, actor, and filmmaker. His feature film debut came in 2004 as the title character of the comedy film Napoleon Dynamite...
) whose world turns upside down when his widowed mother starts dating and considers booting him out of the house. Distributed for a limited release to certain parts of the United States only, the independent comedy garnered largely negative reviews.
In 2008, Keaton starred alongside Dax Shepard
Dax Shepard
Dax Randall Shepard is an American actor.- Early life :Shepard was born in Milford, Michigan and attended Muir Junior High and Walled Lake Central High School, before enrolling in The Groundlings school. He later received a degree in anthropology at UCLA...
and Liv Tyler
Liv Tyler
Liv Rundgren Tyler is an American actress and model. She is the daughter of Aerosmith's lead singer, Steven Tyler, and Bebe Buell, model and singer. Tyler began a career in modeling at the age of 14, but after less than a year she decided to focus on acting. She made her film debut in the 1994...
in Vince Di Meglio's dramedy Smother
Smother (film)
Smother is a 2008 comedy film starring Diane Keaton as a mother who is over-attached to her adult son. The movie is directed by Vince Di Meglio.- Plot :...
, playing the overbearing mother of an unemployed therapist, who decides to move in with him and his girlfriend following the split from her husband, played by Ken Howard
Ken Howard
Kenneth Joseph "Ken" Howard, Jr. is an American actor, best known for his roles as Thomas Jefferson in 1776 and as basketball coach and former Chicago Bulls player Ken Reeves in the television show The White Shadow...
. As with Mama's Boy, the film received a limited release only, resulting into minor gross of US$1.8 million worldwide. Critical reaction to the film was generally unfavorable, and once again Keaton was dismissed for her role choices, with Sandra Hall of the New York Post writing, "Diane's career is dyin' [...] this time, sadly, she's gone too far. She's turned herself into a mother-in-law joke." Also in 2008, Keaton appeared alongside Katie Holmes
Katie Holmes
Katherine Noelle "Katie" Holmes is an American actress who first achieved fame for her role as Joey Potter on The WB television teen drama Dawson's Creek from 1998 to 2003. Her movie roles have included the blockbuster Batman Begins along with art house films such as The Ice Storm and thrillers...
and Queen Latifah
Queen Latifah
Dana Elaine Owens , better known by her stage name Queen Latifah, is an American singer, rapper, and actress. Her work in music, film and television has earned her a Golden Globe award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Image Awards, a Grammy Award, six additional Grammy nominations, an Emmy...
in the crime-comedy film Mad Money
Mad Money (film)
Mad Money is a 2008 comedy-crime film starring Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes, and directed by Callie Khouri. It is loosely based on the 2001 British film Hot Money.-Plot:...
, directed by Callie Khouri
Callie Khouri
Callie Khouri is an American screenwriter and film director. In 1992 she won the Academy Award for Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen for the film, Thelma & Louise.-Biography:...
. Based on the British television drama Hot Money
Hot Money
-Plot:The drama tells the story of three workers at the Bank of England incinerating plant in Essex. The trio, led by Bridget , hatch a plan to steal thousands of pounds by stashing the notes in their underwear.-Cast:-Production:...
(2001), the film revolves around three female employees of the Federal Reserve who scheme to steal money that is about to be destroyed. As with Keaton's previous projects, the film bombed at the box offices with a gross total of US$26.4 million, and was universally panned by critics, ranking third in the New York Post Top 10 Worst Movies of 2008 overview.
2010s
In 2010, Keaton starred alongside Rachel McAdamsRachel McAdams
Rachel Anne McAdams is a Canadian actress. After graduating from a theatre program at York University, Toronto in 2001, she worked steadily as an actress until finding fame in 2004 with starring roles in teen comedy Mean Girls and romantic drama The Notebook...
and Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford is an American film actor and producer. He is famous for his performances as Han Solo in the original Star Wars trilogy and as the title character of the Indiana Jones film series. Ford is also known for his roles as Rick Deckard in Blade Runner, John Book in Witness and Jack Ryan in...
in Roger Michell
Roger Michell
Roger Michell is an English theatre, television and film director.-Personal life:He was born in Pretoria, South Africa but spent significant parts of his childhood in Beirut, Damascus and Prague as his father was a diplomat. He was educated at Clifton College where he became a member of Brown's...
's comedy Morning Glory
Morning Glory (2010 film)
Morning Glory is a 2010 American comedy-drama film directed by Roger Michell, produced by J.J. Abrams and written by Aline Brosh McKenna. It stars Rachel McAdams, Harrison Ford, Diane Keaton, Patrick Wilson and Jeff Goldblum. After some delays, the film was released in the United States on November...
, playing the veteran TV host of a fictional morning talk show that desperately needs to boost its lagging ratings. Portraying a narcissistic character that would do anything to please the audience, Keaton described her role as "the kind of woman you love to hate." Inspired by Neil Simon
Neil Simon
Neil Simon is an American playwright and screenwriter. He has written numerous Broadway plays, including Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, and The Odd Couple. He won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Lost In Yonkers. He has written the screenplays for several of his plays that...
's 1972 Broadway play The Sunshine Boys
The Sunshine Boys
The Sunshine Boys is a play by Neil Simon that was produced on Broadway in 1972 and later adapted for film and television.-Plot:The play focuses on aging Al Lewis and Willy Clark, a one-time vaudevillian team known as "Lewis and Clark" who, over the course of forty-odd years, not only grew to hate...
, the film became a moderate success at the box office for a worldwide total of almost $59 million. Though some critics found that Keaton was underused in the film, the actress was generally praised for performance, with James Berardinelli of ReelViews noting that "Diane Keaton is so good at her part that one can see her sliding effortlessly into an anchor's chair on a real morning show."
In fall 2010, Keaton joined the production of the comedy Darling Companion
Darling Companion
Darling Companion is an upcoming comedy film starring Diane Keaton and Kevin Kline. Filming took place in Utah in 2010 for a 2012 release.-Plot:Beth Winter loves her dog more than she loves her husband Joseph , until Joseph loses the dog....
by Lawrence Kasdan
Lawrence Kasdan
Lawrence Edward "Larry" Kasdan is an American film producer, director and screenwriter.-Life and career:Kasdan was born in Miami, Florida, the son of Sylvia Sarah , an employment counselor, and Clarence Norman Kasdan, who managed retail electronics stores.His Brother is the writer/producer Mark...
, which is due to 2012. Co-starring Kevin Kline
Kevin Kline
Kevin Delaney Kline is an American theatre, voice, film actor and comedian. He has won an Academy Award and two Tony Awards, and has been nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, two BAFTA Awards and an Emmy Award.- Early life :...
and Dianne Wiest
Dianne Wiest
Dianne Wiest is an American actress. She has had a successful career on stage, television, and film, and has won two Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. Wiest has also been nominated for a BAFTA Award.-Early life:...
and set in Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
, the film follows a woman, played by Keaton, whose husband loses her much-beloved dog at a wedding held at their vacation home in the Rocky Mountains
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...
, resulting in a search party to find the pet.
In 2011, Keaton began production on Justin Zackham
Justin Zackham
Justin Zackham is the writer and executive producer of "The Bucket List" starring Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, Sean Hayes and Rob Morrow. The film, directed by Rob Reiner, was released on Christmas, 2007. The film tells the story of two men who are roommates in a cancer ward where they learn...
's independent ensemble comedy The Big Wedding, in which she, along with Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro, Jr. is an American actor, director and producer. His first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both in 1973...
, will play a long-divorced couple who, for the sake of their adopted son's wedding and his very religious biological mother, pretend they're still married. In addition, Keaton has been cast in the family comedy One Big Happy alongside Steve Martin
Steve Martin
Stephen Glenn "Steve" Martin is an American actor, comedian, writer, playwright, producer, musician and composer....
, and The Look of Love, an independent romance film, with Ed Harris
Ed Harris
Edward Allen "Ed" Harris is an American actor, writer, and director, known for his performances in Appaloosa, Radio, The Rock, The Abyss, Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, A History of Violence, and The Truman Show. Harris has also narrated commercials for The Home Depot and other companies...
.
Relationships and family
Keaton's most famous romance was with director Woody AllenWoody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
. Keaton and Allen first met during her audition for the Broadway production of Play It Again, Sam, but they did not know each other personally until having dinner after a late night rehearsal. Allen claims that Keaton's sense of humor attracted him to her. They briefly lived together during the Broadway run of Play It Again, Sam, but their relationship became less formal by the time the film version was produced in 1972. They worked together on eight films between 1971 and 1993.
In 1979, she began dating her Reds co-star Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty born March 30, 1937) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director. He has received a total of fourteen Academy Award nominations, winning one for Best Director in 1982. He has also won four Golden Globe Awards including the Cecil B. DeMille Award.-Early life and...
. Keaton's involvement with Beatty also made her a regular subject of tabloid
Tabloid journalism
Tabloid journalism tends to emphasize topics such as sensational crime stories, astrology, gossip columns about the personal lives of celebrities and sports stars, and junk food news...
magazines and media at the time, a role she was unaccustomed to. (As a result of her avoiding the spotlight, Vanity Fair described her in 1985 as "the most reclusive star since Garbo
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo , born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of Garbo's films were sensational hits, and all but three were profitable...
".) Beatty and Keaton separated shortly after completing Reds. Their separation was believed to have been caused by the strain of making the film, a troubled production with numerous financial and scheduling problems. Keaton still maintains contact with both Allen and Beatty, and describes Allen as one of her closest friends.
Keaton also had a relationship with Al Pacino
Al Pacino
Alfredo James "Al" Pacino is an American film and stage actor and director. He is famous for playing mobsters, including Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy, Tony Montana in Scarface, Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice in Dick Tracy and Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way, though he has also appeared...
, her co-star in The Godfather Trilogy. The on-again, off-again relationship
On-again, off-again relationship
An on-again, off-again relationship is a form of casual relationship, usually sexual, between two people. It is where the couple concerned do not see their discontinuous affair as an ongoing or formal relationship...
ended following the filming of The Godfather Part III. Referring to the relationship, Keaton has said "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 publicly announced that she had given up pursuing romance, and stated, "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
Adoption
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting for another and, in so doing, permanently transfers all rights and responsibilities from the original parent or parents...
children, daughter Dexter (adopted 1996) and son Duke (adopted 2001). Keaton decided to become a mother at the age of 50 after the death of her father, when she began to realize her own mortality. 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."
Religious beliefs
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" but also stated that she considered herself an agnostic.Raised a Methodist, Keaton stated in an October 2002 television interview with Oxygen that although she currently believes in God, she considered herself an atheist for a period of her life. Woody Allen once said of her, "(She) believes in God, but she also believes that the radio works because there are tiny people inside it".
Other activities
Keaton is an opponent of plastic surgeryPlastic surgery
Plastic surgery is a medical specialty concerned with the correction or restoration of form and function. Though cosmetic or aesthetic surgery is the best-known kind of plastic surgery, most plastic surgery is not cosmetic: plastic surgery includes many types of reconstructive surgery, hand...
. 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 also active in campaigns with the Los Angeles Conservancy
Los Angeles Conservancy
The Los Angeles Conservancy is an historic preservation organization in Los Angeles, California. It works to document, rescue and revitalize historic buildings, places and neighborhoods in the city. The Conservancy is the largest membership based historic preservation organization in the country...
to save and restore historic buildings, particularly in the Los Angeles area. Among the buildings she has been active in restoring include the Ennis House
Ennis House
The Ennis House is a residential dwelling in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA, south of Griffith Park. The home was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for Charles and Mabel Ennis in 1923, and built in 1924....
in the Hollywood Hills designed by Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
. 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.
Since May 2005, she has been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post is an American news website and content-aggregating blog founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti, featuring liberal minded columnists and various news sources. The site offers coverage of politics, theology, media, business, entertainment, living, style,...
. Since summer 2006, Keaton has been the new face of L'Oréal
L'Oréal
The L'Oréal Group is the world's largest cosmetics and beauty company. With its registered office in Paris and head office in the Paris suburb of Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine, France, it has developed activities in the field of cosmetics...
.
Keaton has served as a producer on films and television series. She produced the Fox series Pasadena
Pasadena (TV series)
Pasadena is an American primetime soap opera originally broadcast in the U.S. from September to November 2001 on Fox.-Summary:The series starred Alison Lohman as Lily McAllister, an initially naïve young woman who witnesses a stranger's suicide and begins to investigate the secrets being hidden by...
, that was canceled after airing only four episodes in 2001 but later completed its run on cable
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
in 2005. In 2003, she produced the Gus Van Sant
Gus Van Sant
Gus Green Van Sant, Jr. is an American director, screenwriter, painter, photographer, musician, and author. He is a two time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Director for his 1997 film Good Will Hunting and his 2008 film Milk, both of which were also nominated for Best Picture, and won the...
drama Elephant, about a school shooting. On 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."
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
Ron Galella
Ron Galella is an American photographer, known as a pioneer paparazzo. Dubbed "Paparazzo Extraordinaire" by Newsweek and "the Godfather of the U.S...
, an anthology of reproductions of clown
Clown
Clowns are comic performers stereotypically characterized by the grotesque image of the circus clown's colored wigs, stylistic makeup, outlandish costumes, unusually large footwear, and red nose, which evolved to project their actions to large audiences. Other less grotesque styles have also...
paintings, and a collection of photos of California's Spanish Colonial-style houses.
Keaton has also established herself as a real estate
Real estate
In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...
developer. She has resold several mansions in Southern California after renovating and redesigning them. One of her clients is Madonna
Madonna (entertainer)
Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...
, who purchased a US$6.5 million Beverly Hills mansion from Keaton in 2003. She received the Film Society of Lincoln Center
Film Society of Lincoln Center
The Film Society of Lincoln Center based in New York City, United States, is one of the world's most prominent film presentation organizations. Founded in 1969 by three Lincoln Center executives - William F. May, Martin E. Segal and Schuyler G...
's Gala Tribute in 2007.
Keaton has recently written her first memoir, entitled Then Again. Random House published it and put it on sale on November 15, 2011.
Filmography
| Year | Film | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 | Lovers and Other Strangers Lovers and Other Strangers Lovers and Other Strangers is a 1970 comedy film based on the play by Renee Taylor and Joseph Bologna. The film features an ensemble cast including Richard Castellano, Gig Young, Cloris Leachman, Anne Jackson, Beatrice Arthur, Bonnie Bedelia, Michael Brandon, Harry Guardino, Anne Meara, Bob Dishy,... |
Joan Vecchio | |
| 1970 | Night Gallery Night Gallery Night Gallery is an American anthology series that aired on NBC from 1970 to 1973, featuring stories of horror and the macabre. Rod Serling, who had gained fame from an earlier series, The Twilight Zone, served both as the on-air host of Night Gallery and as a major contributor of scripts, although... |
Nurse Frances Nevins | (TV series) |
| 1971 | Men of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story Men of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story Men of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story is a short film directed by Woody Allen in 1971. The film was a satirization of the Richard Nixon administration made in mockumentary style.... |
Renata Wallinger | (TV short) |
| 1971 | Diane Britt | (TV series) | |
| 1971 | Mannix Mannix Mannix is an American television detective series that ran from 1967 through 1975 on CBS. Created by Richard Levinson and William Link and developed by executive producer Bruce Geller, the title character, Joe Mannix, is a private investigator. He is played by Mike Connors... |
Cindy Conrad | (TV series) |
| 1972 | Kay Adams-Corleone | ||
| 1972 | Play It Again, Sam | Linda Christie | |
| 1973 | Sleeper Sleeper (film) Sleeper is a 1973 futuristic science fiction comedy film, written by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman, and directed by Allen. The plot involves the adventures of the owner of a Greenwich Village, NY health food store played by Woody Allen who is cryogenically frozen in 1973 and defrosted 200... |
Luna Schlosser | |
| 1974 | Kay Adams-Corleone | ||
| 1975 | Love and Death Love and Death Love and Death is a 1975 comedy film by Woody Allen. Starring Woody Allen and Diane Keaton, Love and Death is a satirical take on Russian epic novels. Coming in between Sleeper and Annie Hall, Love and Death is in many respects an artistic transition between the two... |
Sonja | |
| 1976 | I Will, I Will... for Now I Will, I Will... for Now I Will, I Will... for Now is a 1976 film directed by Norman Panama. It stars Elliott Gould and Diane Keaton.-Plot:The marriage of Les and Katie Bingham is in big trouble. They've already split up once, and now they're giving it one more try, but the bedroom of their New York apartment is not a... |
Katie Bingham | |
| 1976 | Harry and Walter Go to New York Harry and Walter Go to New York Harry and Walter Go to New York is a 1976 American period comedy film written by John Byrum, directed by Mark Rydell, and starring James Caan, Elliot Gould, Michael Caine, Diane Keaton, Charles Durning and Lesley Ann Warren. In the film, two down-on-their-luck con men try to pull off the biggest... |
Lissa Chestnut | |
| 1977 | Annie Hall Annie Hall Annie Hall is a 1977 American romantic comedy directed by Woody Allen from a screenplay co-written with Marshall Brickman and co-starring Diane Keaton. One of Allen's most popular and most honored films, it won four Academy Awards including Best Picture... |
Annie Hall | Academy Award for Best Actress Academy Award for Best Actress Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry... BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role Best Actress in a Leading Role is a British Academy Film award presented annually by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts to recognise an actress who has delivered an outstanding leading performance in a film.- Winners and nominees :... Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards 1977 The 12th Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards, honoring the best filmmaking of 1977 filmmaking, were given in 1978.-Winners:*Best Actor:**Richard Dreyfuss - The Goodbye Girl*Best Actress:**Diane Keaton - Annie Hall*Best Director:... for Best Actress National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress The National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress is one of the annual film awards given by the National Board of Review.-1950s:-1960s:-1970s:-1980s:-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:... National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress TheNational Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress is an annual award given by the National Society of Film Critics to honour the best leading actress of the year.-1960s:-1970s:-1980s:-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:... New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress |
| 1977 | Looking for Mr. Goodbar Looking for Mr. Goodbar (film) Looking for Mr. Goodbar is a 1977 film written for the screen and directed by Richard Brooks and starring Diane Keaton, Tuesday Weld, Richard Gere, and also features Tom Berenger... |
Theresa Dunn | Premios Fotogramas de Plata — Best Foreign Movie Performer (also for Interiors Interiors Interiors is a 1978 drama film written and directed by Woody Allen. Featured performers are Kristin Griffith, Mary Beth Hurt, Richard Jordan, Diane Keaton, E. G. Marshall, Geraldine Page, Maureen Stapleton and Sam Waterston.... ) Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama |
| 1978 | Interiors Interiors Interiors is a 1978 drama film written and directed by Woody Allen. Featured performers are Kristin Griffith, Mary Beth Hurt, Richard Jordan, Diane Keaton, E. G. Marshall, Geraldine Page, Maureen Stapleton and Sam Waterston.... |
Renata | Premios Fotogramas de Plata — Best Foreign Movie Performer (also for Looking for Mr. Goodbar Looking for Mr. Goodbar Looking for Mr. Goodbar is a 1975 novel by Judith Rossner. Rossner based the novel on the events surrounding the brutal murder of Roseann Quinn, a 28-year-old New York City schoolteacher in 1973.-References:... ) |
| 1979 | Manhattan Manhattan (film) Manhattan is a 1979 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Woody Allen about a twice-divorced 42-year-old comedy writer who dates a 17-year-old girl before eventually falling in love with his best friend's mistress... |
Mary Wilkie | Nominated — American Movie Award American Movie Awards The American Movie Awards were awards to honour excellence in film, there were only two ceremonies, one in 1980, and one in 1982.-1980:*Best Film: Rocky II*Best Actor: Alan Alda *Best Actress: Sally Field... for Best Actress Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role Best Actress in a Leading Role is a British Academy Film award presented annually by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts to recognise an actress who has delivered an outstanding leading performance in a film.- Winners and nominees :... |
| 1981 | Reds | Louise Bryant Louise Bryant Louise Bryant was an American journalist and writer. She was best known for her Marxist and anarchist beliefs and her essays on radical political and feminist themes. Bryant published articles in several radical left journals during her life, including Alexander Berkman's The Blast... |
David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Actress David di Donatello for Best Actress -Albo d'oro:1956Gina Lollobrigida - La donna più bella del mondo1958*Anna Magnani - Wild Is the Wind1959*Anna Magnani - Nella città l'inferno1961*Sophia Loren - La ciociara1963... Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama |
| 1982 | Shoot the Moon | Faith Dunlap | Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama |
| 1984 | Mrs. Soffel Mrs. Soffel Mrs. Soffel is a 1984 American film drama based on the true Buck McGovern and the Biddle Boys case of 1901 Pittsburgh, starring Diane Keaton and Mel Gibson. It was filmed on location in and around the Serez family Farm in Mulmer Ontario, as well as Wisconsin and establishing shots in Pittsburgh... |
Kate Soffel | Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama |
| 1984 | Charlie | ||
| 1986 | Crimes of the Heart Crimes of the Heart (film) Crimes of the Heart is a 1986 American black comedy film directed by Bruce Beresford. The screenplay by Beth Henley is adapted from her Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name.-Plot:... |
Lenny Magrath | |
| 1987 | Radio Days Radio Days Radio Days is a 1987 comedy film directed by Woody Allen. The film looks back on an American family's life during the Golden Age of Radio using both music and memories to tell the story.-Plot:... |
New Year's singer | Cameo |
| 1987 | Baby Boom Baby Boom (film) Baby Boom is a 1987 comedy film starring Diane Keaton. The film also launched a subsequent television show starring Kate Jackson, running from 1988 to 1989. The original music score was composed by Bill Conti and the cinematography was by William A. Fraker.... |
J.C. Wiatt | Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy |
| 1987 | Heaven Heaven (1987 film) Heaven is a 1987 documentary film about beliefs concerning the afterlife and heaven in particular. The film was written and directed by Diane Keaton, and features a soundtrack by Howard Shore.... |
Documentary film; also writer/director | |
| 1988 | Anna Dunlap | ||
| 1989 | Eloise Hamer | ||
| 1990 | Kay Adams | ||
| 1991 | Father of the Bride Father of the Bride (1991 film) Father of the Bride is a 1991 American comedy film starring Steve Martin, Diane Keaton, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, George Newbern, Martin Short, B.D. Wong and Kieran Culkin. It is a remake of the 1950 movie of the same name... |
Nina Banks | |
| 1992 | Running Mate | Aggie Snow | Television film |
| 1993 | Manhattan Murder Mystery Manhattan Murder Mystery Manhattan Murder Mystery is a comedic murder mystery film directed by and starring Woody Allen and written by Marshall Brickman and Woody Allen.-Plot:... |
Carol Lipton | Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy |
| 1993 | Look Who's Talking Now Look Who's Talking Now Look Who's Talking Now is the third and final installment in the film series that began with Look Who's Talking in 1989. Released in 1993, the film finds John Travolta and Kirstie Alley reprising their roles as James and Mollie Ubriacco, respectively, and introducing the newly extended family... |
Daphne | Voice role |
| 1994 | Amelia Earhart: The Final Flight | Amelia Earhart Amelia Earhart Amelia Mary Earhart was a noted American aviation pioneer and author. Earhart was the first woman to receive the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded for becoming the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean... |
Television film Nominated — Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress In A Mini-series or Motion Picture Made for Television |
| 1995 | Father of the Bride Part II Father of the Bride Part II Father of the Bride Part II is a 1995 comedy film starring Steve Martin, Diane Keaton and Martin Short. The movie is a sequel to Father of the Bride and a re-make of the sequel to the original version, Father's Little Dividend.-Synopsis:... |
Nina Banks | |
| 1996 | Annie Paradis | Golden Apple Award Golden Apple Award The Golden Apple Award is an American award presented to entertainers by the Hollywood Women's Press Club, usually in recognition not of performance but of behavior. The award has been presented since 1941 and includes categories recognizing actors for being easy to work with, as well as categories... National Board of Review Award for Best Cast National Board of Review Award for Best Cast The National Board of Review Award for Best Acting by an Ensemble is an annual film award given by the National Board of Review.-1990s:... |
|
| 1996 | Marvin's Room | Bessie Greenfield | Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role – Motion Picture Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture |
| 1997 | Carol Fitzsimmons | ||
| 1997 | Northern Lights Northern Lights (1997 film) Northern Lights is the first Disney Channel Original Movie and it starred Academy Award-winner Diane Keaton.-Plot summary:A stranger's call informs Roberta that her estranged brother Frank has died in a small town under bizarre circumstances... |
Roberta Blumstein | (TV film) |
| 1999 | Elizabeth Tate | ||
| 2000 | Hanging Up Hanging Up Hanging Up is a 2000 American comedy-drama film about a trio of sisters who bond over their ambivalence toward the approaching death of their curmudgeonly father, to whom none of them were particularly close... |
Georgia Mozell | Also director |
| 2001 | Town & Country Town & Country (film) Town & Country is a 2001 film starring Goldie Hawn, Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton and Garry Shandling and directed by Peter Chelsom. It is a romantic comedy in which Beatty plays New York City architect Porter Stoddard, with Keaton as his wife and Hawn and Shandling as their best friends. It holds... |
Ellie Stoddard | |
| 2001 | Sister Mary Explains It All Sister Mary Explains It All Sister Mary Explains It All is a 2001 satirical dark comedy film written by Christopher Durang and directed by Marshall Brickman. The film, based upon Durang's 1979 play Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You, and starring Diane Keaton in the title role, premiered on the Showtime network.-... |
Sister Mary Ignatius | Television film |
| 2001 | Plan B | Fran Varrechio | Television film |
| 2002 | Crossed Over | Beverly Lowry | Television film |
| 2003 | On Thin Ice | Patsy McCartle | Television film |
| 2003 | Something's Gotta Give Something's Gotta Give (film) Something's Gotta Give is a 2003 American romantic comedy film written, produced and directed by Nancy Meyers for both Columbia Pictures and Warner Bros. It stars Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton as a successful 60-something and 50-something, who find love for each other at a different time of life,... |
Erica Barry | Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy Iowa Film Critics Award Iowa Film Critics Awards 2003 The 1st Iowa Film Critics Awards, honoring the best in film for 2003, were announced on January 13, 2004.Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation won the Iowa Film Critics Awards for Best Picture and Actor .-Winners:* Best Actor:... for Best Actress National Board of Review Award for Best Actress National Board of Review Award for Best Actress The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures Award for Best Actress is one of the annual film awards given by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.-1940s:-1950s:- 1960s :- 1970s :- 1980s :- 1990s :- 2000s :-2010s:... Satellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress Nominated — Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress Nominated — Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role – Motion Picture Nominated — Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association The Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association is a group of film critics based out of Washington, D.C., United States that was founded in 2003. WAFCA is composed of 34 DC-based film critics from television, radio, print and the internet... Award |
| 2003 | Elephant | Executive producer | |
| 2005 | Sybil Stone | Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture | |
| 2006 | Surrender, Dorothy | Natalie Swerdlow | Television film |
| 2007 | Because I Said So | Daphne Wilder | Nominated — Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress |
| 2007 | Mama's Boy | Jan Mannus | |
| 2008 | Mad Money Mad Money (film) Mad Money is a 2008 comedy-crime film starring Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes, and directed by Callie Khouri. It is loosely based on the 2001 British film Hot Money.-Plot:... |
Bridget Cardigan | |
| 2008 | Smother Smother (film) Smother is a 2008 comedy film starring Diane Keaton as a mother who is over-attached to her adult son. The movie is directed by Vince Di Meglio.- Plot :... |
Marilyn Cooper | |
| 2010 | Morning Glory Morning Glory (2010 film) Morning Glory is a 2010 American comedy-drama film directed by Roger Michell, produced by J.J. Abrams and written by Aline Brosh McKenna. It stars Rachel McAdams, Harrison Ford, Diane Keaton, Patrick Wilson and Jeff Goldblum. After some delays, the film was released in the United States on November... |
Colleen Peck | |
| 2012 | Darling Companion Darling Companion Darling Companion is an upcoming comedy film starring Diane Keaton and Kevin Kline. Filming took place in Utah in 2010 for a 2012 release.-Plot:Beth Winter loves her dog more than she loves her husband Joseph , until Joseph loses the dog.... |
Beth Winter | post-production |
| 2012 | Ellie Griffin | filming |
Further reading
- Lax, EricEric LaxEric Lax is an American biographer and author of On Being Funny: Woody Allen and Comedy as well as several other books and articles.He graduated from Hobart College in 1966 with a major in English. Upon graduating he joined the Peace Corps serving in Chuuk and the Caroline Islands in the western...
. Woody Allen: A Biography (Paperback). ISBN 0-306-80985-0. Da Capo Press; Updated edition (December 2000).
External links
- Diane Keaton at Rotten TomatoesRotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
- Diane Keaton's blog on The Huffington Post