diane keaton

Diane Keaton died in Los Angeles on Saturday at age 79, and her family says the cause was pneumonia.

Family members of the Oscar-winning actress shared a statement with People confirming Keaton’s cause of death and saying they were “very grateful for the extraordinary messages of love and support” they had received in recent days.

The outlet first reported the news of the screen icon’s death Saturday, saying the Los Angeles Fire Department had responded to her home that morning and transported a 79-year-old woman to an area hospital. Initially, the family did not disclose the cause of death and asked for privacy as they processed their grief.

In Wednesday’s statement, Keaton’s family members said the star had a deep love for animals and was passionate about supporting the unhoused community. They encouraged people to honor her memory by donating to a food bank or animal shelter.

Keaton was known for her powerful performances in iconic pictures such as Francis Ford Coppola’s “Godfather” movies and Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall,” which earned her the 1978 Academy Award for lead actress. She was also nominated for lead actress for her roles in “Reds” (1981), “Marvin’s Room” (1996) and “Something’s Gotta Give” (2003).

Born in Los Angeles in 1946, Keaton rose to fame through her late 1960s New York stage career, earning a Tony nomination at age 25 for her role in Allen’s 1969 theatrical production of “Play It Again, Sam.”

Later in her career, she became a muse for writer-director-producer Nancy Meyers and starred in four of her movies. She was a noted trendsetter known for her fabulous on-screen outfits and, more recently, for sharing her style on Instagram, where she amassed 2.6 million followers.

Keaton’s death was widely mourned by theater, movie and fashion lovers alike.

“She was hilarious, a complete original, and completely without guile, or any of the competitiveness one would have expected from such a star,” wrote actor Bette Midler on Instagram. “What you saw was who she was.”

“Diane Keaton wasn’t just an actress: she was a force,” wrote actor Octavia Spencer on Instagram, “a woman who showed us that being yourself is the most powerful thing you can be. From Annie Hall to Something’s Gotta Give, she made every role unforgettable.”

Times film editor Joshua Rothkopf contributed to this report.

When Diane Keaton was 11, her father told her she was growing into a pretty young woman and someday, a boy would make her happy. She was horrified. One boy? Keaton — then going by her birth name of Diane Hall — needed to be loved by everyone. It was an early sign that she was meant to be an actor.

“Intimacy meant only one person loved you, not thousands, not millions,” Keaton wrote decades later in her 2011 memoir “Then Again.” Like drinking and smoking, she added, intimacy should be handled with caution.

“I wanted to be Warren Beatty, not date him,” Keaton confessed, romancing fellow artists as long as their relationship was mutually stimulating and then after that, remaining friends. “I collect men,” she jokingly told me when I interviewed her a decade ago, referring to a photo wall in her Los Angeles home of fellows she admired, including Morgan Freeman, Abraham Lincoln, Gary Cooper and John Wayne. She wanted an excuse to add Ryan Gosling and Channing Tatum, so I suggested a love-triangle comedy as a twofer. “No! Not one movie!” Keaton exclaimed. “I want to keep my career going.”

Just as she hoped, millions of us did fall in love with Keaton, who died Saturday at age 79. She captivated us for over 50 years, from awards heavy-hitters to a late-career string of hangout comedies that weren’t about anything more than the joy of spending time with Diane Keaton, or in the case of her 2022 body swap movie “Mack & Rita,” the thrill of becoming Diane Keaton.

In her final films, including “Summer Camp” and the “Book Club” franchise, Keaton pretty much only played variations of herself, providing reason enough to watch. I looked forward to the moment her character fully embraced looking like Diane Keaton, writing in my otherwise middling review of “Mack & Rita” that the sequence in which she “picks up a kooky blazer and wide belt is presented with the anticipation of Bruce Wayne reaching for his cowl.”

I wanted to be Diane Keaton, even if she wanted to be Warren Beatty.

The contradiction of her career is that the things we in the audience loved about her — the breezy humor, the self-deprecating charm, the iconic threads — were Keaton’s attempts to mask her own insecurities. She struggled to love herself. Even after success, Keaton remained iffy about her looks, her talent and her achievements. In interviews, she openly admitted to feeling inadequate in her signature halting, circular stammers. That is, when she’d consent to be interviewed at all, which in the first decade of her career was so rare that Keaton, loping across Central Park in baggy pants to the white-on-white apartment where she lived alone, was essentially a movie star Sasquatch.

Journalists described her as a modern Garbo. “Her habit is to clutch privacy about her like a shawl,” Time Magazine wrote in 1977, the year that “Annie Hall” and “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” established Keaton as a kooky sweetheart with serious range. I love that simile because she did refer to her wardrobe as an “impenetrable fortress.” The more bizarre the ensemble — jackets over skirts over pants over boots — the less anyone would notice the person wearing it.

Odd ducks like myself adored the whole package, including her relatable candor. She showed us how to charge through the world with aplomb, even when you’re nervous as heck.

Once young Keaton decided she wanted to perform, she set about auditioning for everything from the church choir and the cheerleading squad to the class play. But her school had a traditionally beautiful ingenue who landed the leads. This was Orange County, after all. Keaton would go home, stare at the mirror and feel disappointed by her reflection. She dreamed of looking like perky, platinum blond Doris Day. Instead, she saw a miniature Amelia Earhart. (She’d eventually get a Golden Globe nomination for playing Earhart on television in 1994.)

Keaton stuck a clothespin on the tip of her nose to make it smaller, and acted the part of an extrovert: big laugh, big hair and, when she stopped liking her hair, big hats. By age 15, she was assembling the bold, black and white wardrobe she’d wear forever and her taste for monochrome clothes was already so entrenched that she wrote Judy Garland a fan letter wondering why Dorothy had to leave Kansas for garish Oz. She might have been the only person to ever ask that question.

Not too long after that, Keaton flew across the country to New York where several things happened in short succession that would have puffed up anyone else’s ego. The drama coach Sanford Meisner gave her his blessing. The Broadway hit “Hair” gave her the main part (and agreed she could stay fully clothed). And “The Godfather,” the No. 1 box office hit of 1972, plucked Keaton from stage obscurity to give the fledgling screen actor its crucial final shot, a close-up.

Keaton made $6,000 for “The Godfather,” less than a quarter of her salary for the national deodorant commercial she’d shot a year earlier. Her memories from the set of the first film were uncharacteristically terse. Her wig was heavy, her part was “background music” and the one time Marlon Brando spoke to her, he said, “Nice tits.”

Nevertheless, Keaton’s Kay is so soft, friendly and assured when she first meets the Corleone clan at a wedding, sweetly refusing to let her boyfriend Michael dodge how the family knows the pop singer Johnny Fontane, that it’s heartbreaking (and impressive) to watch her become smaller and harder across her few scenes. But Keaton says she never saw the finished movie. “I couldn’t stand looking at myself,” she wrote in “Then Again.”

Woody Allen put the Keaton he adored front and center when he wrote “Annie Hall.” He wanted audiences to fall in love with the singular daffiness of his former girlfriend and it worked like gangbusters. It’s my favorite of his movies and my favorite of hers, and there’s just no use in pretending otherwise, as obvious of a pick as it is. Even now that I know the Annie Hall I worship is a shy woman putting on a show of being herself, the “la-di-dah” confidence she projects makes her the most precious of screen presences: the icon who feels like friend.

But I wonder if Allen also made “Annie Hall” so that Diane Keaton could fall in love with Diane Keaton just as he had. Maybe if she saw herself through his eyes, it could convince her that she really was sexy, sparkling and hilarious. But Keaton only watched “Annie Hall” once, in an ordinary theater well after it opened, and she found the experience of staring at herself miserable. She never absorbed her lead actress Oscar win. “I knew I didn’t deserve it,” she said. “I’d won an Academy Award for playing an affable version of myself.”

Nearly herself, that is. The onscreen version of Keaton is stumped when Alvy Singer brings her a copy of the philosophical tome “Death and Western Thought.” But a decade later, Keaton directed “Heaven,” an entire documentary about the subject, in which she asked street preachers and Don King and her 94-year-old grandmother how they imagined the afterlife. (As in Allen’s movie, her grandmother actually was named Grammy Hall.)

“Heaven” is an experimental film that’s heavy on dramatic shadows and surreal old movie footage, the sort of thing that would play best on an art gallery wall. It flopped, as test screenings warned it would, cautioning Keaton that her directorial debut only appealed to female weirdos — people like her. Keaton isn’t a voice in the film. Yet, that she made it at all makes every frame feel personal, and you hear her affection for the cadence of her occasionally tongue-tied subjects. Her first interviewee stutters, “Uh, heaven, heaven is, uh, um, let me see.” Exactly how Annie Hall would have put it.

Today more than ever, I’m wishing Keaton had been comfortable turning her camera on herself. I’d have liked to watch her explain where she thinks she’s gone, however adorably flustered the answer. But in her four memoirs, she safely bared all in print, openly confronting her harsh inner critic, her battle with bulimia, and — yes, Alvy — her musings on death.

“I don’t know if I have the courage to stare into the spectacle of the great unknown,” Keaton wrote in 2014’s “Let’s Just Say It Wasn’t Pretty,” sounding as apprehensive as ever. “I don’t know if I will make bold mistakes, go out on a blaze of glory unbroken by my losses, defy complacency, and refuse to face the unknown like the coward I know myself to be.”

At last, a sliver of confidence peeks out. “But I hope so.”

On behalf of her millions of fans, I hope so too.

Diane Keaton, the beloved star of “Annie Hall,” “The Godfather” and “The First Wives Club,” wooed audiences as much as she did her multiple Hollywood boyfriends. It seems that much remains true for ex-lovers Woody Allen and Al Pacino, whose high-profile romances with the Los Angeles native are back in the spotlight in the wake of her death over the weekend.

“Her face and laugh illuminated any space she entered,” Allen, Keaton’s “Annie Hall” director and co-star, wrote Sunday.

The acclaimed and controversial filmmaker reminisced on his dating relationship with Keaton for the Free Press, recalling how they first met in Manhattan in the late 1960s for his stage production of “Play It Again, Sam.” Allen’s first impression of the eventual Oscar winner was, he explained, as “if Huckleberry Finn was a gorgeous young woman.”

“The upshot is that she was so charming, so beautiful, so magical, that I questioned my sanity. I thought: Could I be in love so quickly?” he wrote, later describing their evolution from collaborators to romantic partners.

Keaton and Allen collaborated on eight movies, also including “Stardust Memories,” “Sleeper” and “Love and Death.” The 89-year-old director wrote that he “made movies for an audience of one, Diane Keaton,” and heavily valued her opinions on his work. As Allen praised Keaton’s radiating personality (“She was a million laughs to be around”) he recalled learning about her struggles with bulimia and spending Thanksgiving with her family in Orange County.

“Why we parted only God and Freud might be able to figure out,” Allen wrote.

Pacino, who shared the screen with Keaton in three “Godfather” films and dated Keaton throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s, is also thinking about what could have been. “Looking back, Al admits the love of his life was Diane who he’s always called an ‘amazing woman,’ ” a source close to the 85-year-old actor told the Daily Mail.

“I know he will forever regret he didn’t make his move when he had the chance,” the source added. “For years after he and Diane split, Al used to say, ‘If it’s meant to be, it’s never too late for a do-over. But sadly, now it is.’ ”

After news of Keaton’s death spread Saturday, stars including Bette Midler, Steve Martin, Viola Davis and Kate Hudson paid tribute on social media. “What you saw was who she was,” Midler said of her “First Wives Club” co-star. Keaton never married and is survived by two adopted children, Duke and Dexter Keaton.

Allen closed his essay emphasizing the significance of Keaton’s death: “A few days ago the world was a place that included Diane Keaton. Now it’s a world that does not. Hence it’s a drearier world.”

“Still there are her movies,” he wrote. “And her great laugh still echoes in my head.”

Diane Keaton, the actor who made film history — and won an Oscar — as the title character in Woody Allen’s beloved 1977 romantic comedy “Annie Hall,” died Saturday. She was 79. Tributes poured in from those who worked with and admired Keaton, including Bette Midler, Kate Hudson, Steve Martin and Josh Gad.

Here are some notable social media posts:

Bette Midler, the actor, singer and comedian who starred with Keaton and Goldie Hawn in the 1996 comedy “The First Wives Club,” about three divorced women who seek revenge on their ex-husbands: “The brilliant, beautiful, extraordinary Diane Keaton has died. I cannot tell you how unbearably sad this makes me. She was hilarious, a complete original, and completely without guile, or any of the competitiveness one would have expected from such a star. What you saw was who she was …oh, la, lala!”

Kate Hudson: “We love you so much Diane ❤️🕊️”

Steve Martin, who co-starred as Keaton’s husband in the “Father of the Bride” films, reposted an exchange between Keaton and Martin Short:

Short: “Who’s sexier, me or Steve Martin?

Keaton: “I mean, you’re both idiots.”

Martin then commented on the post: “Don’t know who first posted this, but it sums up our delightful relationship with Diane.”

Josh Gad: “What a monumental loss. Diane Keaton in many ways defined my love of movies. From Annie Hall to the Godfather films, from First Wives Club to Baby Boom, from Father of the Bride to Something’s Gotta Give, here resume was nothing short of iconic and hall of fame worthy. I was very fortunate to work with her many years ago on an unproduced HBO pilot and what I found was one of the most humble, ruthlessly funny, and unbelievably talented human beings I’ve ever come across. In many ways, this year will be defined by the loss of a Hollywood we will never again see. There simply are no replacements for a Gene Hackman or a Robert Redford or a Diane Keaton. They were the mavericks who helped redefine movies for a generation. … My heart goes out to Diane’s entire family during this impossible moment. RIP”

Kimberly Williams-Paisley, the actor, author and director who played Keaton’s daughter in the “Father of the Bride” films: “Diane, working with you will always be one of the highlights of my life. You are one of a kind, and it was thrilling to be in your orbit for a time. Thank you for your kindness, your generosity, your talent, and above all, your laughter. 🙏🏻🕊️💔❤️❤️❤️”

Rosie O’Donnell: “oh this breaks my heart – love to her children- what style what grace – she will be missed #ripdianekeaton”

Octavia Spencer: “Today we lost a true original. @diane_keaton wasn’t just an actress: she was a force. a woman who showed us that being yourself is the most powerful thing you can be. From Annie Hall to Something’s Gotta Give, she made every role unforgettable. But beyond the screen, she brought joy, laughter, and style that was all her own… Thank you, Diane, for reminding us that authenticity never goes out of fashion.”

Elizabeth Banks: “She was beloved in her industry. Every one of us idolizes her. Her influence on culture, fashion, art and women can’t be overstated. She was a delight. I am proud I have a career that allowed me to meet her and breathe her air.”

Viola Davis: “No!! No!!! No!! God, not yet, NO!!! Man… you defined womanhood. The pathos, humor, levity, your ever-present youthfulness and vulnerability — you tattooed your SOUL into every role, making it impossible to imagine anyone else inhabiting them. You were undeniably, unapologetically YOU!!! Loved you. Man… rest well. God bless your family, and I know angels are flying you home”

Diane Keaton, who died Saturday at 79, is one of cinema’s most legendary actors. She played some of the most recognizable roles of the late 20th century, and blazed a trail for generations of women to come. Here’s a list of Keaton’s 10 most important films, presented in alphabetical order. We’ll leave the ranking to her devoted fans.

‘Annie Hall’

Woody Allen and Diane Keaton in a scene from the movie “Annie Hall” from MGM / UA Home Video.

(MGM / UA Home Video)

Keaton’s role in Woody Allen’s 1977 romantic comedy was written just for her. Her portrayal of the feisty, eccentric, charming title character would define Keaton as an actor for the rest of her career. Her signature bowler hat and ties became a fashion staple, and fans still can’t think of the song “Seems Like Old Times” without sobbing. The film about the bittersweet nature of lost love was a critical success, and Keaton won her only Academy Award for her work in it.

‘Crimes of the Heart’

Keaton plays Lenny McGrath — the oldest of three sisters — in this 1986 black comedy also starring Diane Lange and Sissy Spacek. The actresses are at the height of their powers in the film, which finds a trio of siblings reuniting at their family home in Mississippi after Babe (Spacek) shoots, and seriously injures, her abusive husband. Spacek won a Golden Globe for her work, and was nominated for an Oscar, but Keaton shines as the less ostentatious of the sisters — an unassuming, terminally single woman who believes a shrunken ovary is the reason for her failure to launch.

‘The Godfather’ parts I and II

Keaton plays Kay Adams Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s epic crime family trilogy. As Michael Corleone’s second wife, and the mother of his children, Kay is one of the few fully realized women in the films. Many fans love Keaton’s performance in the second film best because Kay is the only one to stand up to Michael. When the ruthless mafia boss confronts her about an abortion she has had, Kay lets loose and confronts him about his vicious nature and many lies, vowing to never bring another Corleone into the world.

‘Looking for Mr. Goodbar’

Richard Gere, left, and Diane Keaton in a scene from the 1977 movie, “Looking For Mr. Goodbar.”

(Paramount / Getty Images)

This 1977 crime drama written and directed by Richard Brooks is perhaps Keaton’s most tragic film. She plays a lonely schoolteacher named Theresa Dunn who engages in increasingly risky behavior with strangers in pursuit of love. The film also stars Richard Gere as a controlling, abusive, drug-addicted boyfriend in his first major role. Keaton’s sorrow and desperation in this dark, gritty movie is palpable, making this a defining and heartbreaking part of her ouvré.

‘Manhattan’

Mary Wilke (Diane Keaton) and Isaac Davis (Woody Allen) in the shadow of the Queensborough Bridge in the movie “Manhattan.”

(United Artists)

This 1979 Woody Allen film is now one of the director’s most controversial due to its subject matter. Allen stars as a 42-year-old comedy writer who dates a 17-year-old girl, but ends up falling in love with his best friend’s mistress. Keaton plays that mistress, Mary Wilkie, and her depiction of the witty, wry, journalist with a robust social calendar and strong opinions that she never hesitates to express, is among her most seminal performances.

‘Marvin’s Room’

Keaton stars alongside Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro and a young Leonardo DiCaprio in this 1996 family drama. Keaton was nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal of Bessie Lee, a woman who has been caring for years for her bedridden father when she is diagnosed with leukemia. She turns to her estranged sister, Lee, for help finding a bone marrow transplant match — an endeavor that finds the family once again under the same roof. The tender story of loss and redemption showed that Keaton had staying power decades into her career.

‘Radio Days’

This nostalgic, charmer of a dramedy written and directed by Woody Allen takes place in Rockaway Beach in the 1930s and ‘40s during the golden age of radio. Keaton is part of an ensemble cast in a film filled with vignettes, and she appears in what is essentially a cameo as a New Year’s Eve singer. Wearing a a long-sleeved white dress with her hair pulled back in a bow, she sings a lovely rendition of Cole Porter’s “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To,” proving that when you’re a star of her caliber, you can shine no matter how small the role.

‘Reds’

Warren Beatty co-wrote, produced and directed this historical drama about John Reed, a journalist who chronicled Russia’s 1917 October Revolution. Keaton plays Louise Bryant, a married journalist and suffragist who leaves her husband to move to Greenwich Village with Reed where she becomes part of a robust group of artists and activists, including playwright Eugene O’Neil (Jack Nicholson). The 195-minute film opened to critical acclaim and was nominated for 12 Academy Awards, including best picture. Keaton received her second nomination for best actress but ultimately did not win.

‘Sleeper’

Keaton plays Luna Schlosser, a poet from the 22nd century, in Woody Allen’s 1973 madcap science fiction comedy about a jazz musician named Miles Monroe who owns the Happy Carrot health-food store before being cryogenically frozen for 200 years. Miles wakes in 2173 after being clandestinely revived by a group of rebels and is later delivered — disguised as a robot — into Luna’s home. Hilarious bickering ensues when Luna discovers Miles’ true identity, but she ultimately comes around to his cause. Keaton’s fabulous feathery silver outfits, her ability to utter lines like, “it’s pure keen,” with a straight face, and her substantial use of the “orgasmatron” made the role an instant classic.

‘Something’s Gotta Give’

Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson in the Columbia Pictures romantic comedy movie, “Something’s Gotta Give.”

(Bob Marshak/Columbia Pictures)

Keaton again paired with Jack Nicholson in this 2003 romantic comedy about a pair of mismatched professionals who fall in love in late middle age despite their best efforts to the contrary. The stars have the undeniable chemistry of two acting legends whose work appears absolutely effortless at this stage in their careers. The film was not a critical home run, but Keaton fans think of it as one of her best later roles.

Diane Keaton, the actress who starred in some of the biggest movies of the last half-century, including the “Godfather” and “Annie Hall,” while serving as a style trend-setter and a champion of Los Angeles’ past, has died. She was 79.

Her death was first reported by People and confirmed by The New York Times.

In an extraordinary run during the 1970s when she was dominant, her career spanned the high points of American cinema: Francis Ford Coppola’s mafia saga and several of Woody Allen’s urbane comedies, climaxing in an Oscar win for her culture-changing turn as the title character in 1977’s “Annie Hall.” Keaton’s catchphrase, “Well, la-di-dah,” became iconic.

Over her career, she received four Oscar nominations for lead actress, winning for “Annie Hall.”

Born in Southern California, Keaton achieved fame in the 1970s through her frequent collaborations with Woody Allen and Francis Ford Coppola. She appeared in three “Godfather” movies as well as eight Allen films. Her star turn as Annie Hall earned her critical raves and made her a fashion icon of the era with Annie’s fedora hats, vests, ties and baggy pants. The Times once called her look “fluttery, vulnerable, almost unbearably adorable.”

“Annie’s style was Diane’s style — very eclectic,” designer Ralph Lauren said in a 1978 story in Vogue, soon after the movie came out. “She had a style that was all her own. Annie Hall was pure Diane Keaton.”

She was often asked if she got tired of the notoriety “Annie Hall” brought her, including the magazine covers, think pieces and fashion homages.

“No, I’m not. Everything is because of ‘Annie Hall’ with Woody. He has a great ear for women’s voices. I’m so grateful to him; he really gave me an opportunity that changed my life,” she told The Times in 2012. “I’m never disappointed about people talking to me about ‘Annie Hall.’ But I will say, a lot of people don’t know ‘Annie Hall’ exists, and that’s just the way it goes — goodbye! It’s bittersweet.”

She managed to capture the cultural zeitgeist in later films. In 1987, she played a successful businesswoman who upends her life to care for a relative’s baby in “Baby Boom.” In 2003, she won acclaim in “Something’s Gotta Give” for playing a successful writer navigating with romance in her 50s.

Keaton also got Oscar nominations for “Reds” (1982), “Marvin’s Room” (1996) and “Something’s Gotta Give.”

Keaton was a patron of the L.A. arts scene and also gained note as a champion of architecture preservation, remaking grand homes across the region. In collaboration with the Los Angeles Public Library, she edited a book of tabloid photos called “Local News” that ran in the Los Angeles Herald-Express.

In a 2018 interview with The Times, she said she felt privileged to still be working.

“I know what I am by now,” she said. “I know how old I am. I know what my limitations are and what I can and can’t do. So if something appeals to me, I’m definitely going to go for it.”

Later in life, Keaton became a major voice in architecture preservation.

She grew up Santa Ana during the post World War II housing boom in the 1950s and told The Times in an interviews she loved going to open houses with her father

“My father took me to see model homes, which I thought were palaces,” Keaton said.

She began buying and fixing up landmark homes around L.A., especially those of the Spanish colonial style.

“You have to get to know a house and try to keep its integrity. I try to honor the architect,” she said. “I love to go into an empty house. You look at the house and start to feel what it might need.”

“There are so many house treasures, unsung gems, all over Los Angeles,” she said.

Explaining how she came to edit the book of L.A. tabloid photos, Keaton told The Times the L.A. city library came up to her at a swap meet.

The librarian said, ‘There’s these files in the basement of the Central Library’ — the most beautiful building. I took a look. There are books and books to be made out of those images. This is a brilliant archive.”

In recent years, Keaton had become a hit on Instagram, posting photos of architecture, fashion and more. In an interview in 2019, she said she was still very active, eager to work and try new things but was also thinking more about her mortality.

“Of course, you think about it. How can you not?” she said. “I mean, I’m 73. How long do you live? It’s really important what those years are like.”

Keaton death brought tribute across Hollywood and beyond.

“She was a very special person and an incredibly gifted actor, who made each of her roles unforgettable. Her light will continue to shine through the art she leaves behind. Godspeed,” said Nancy Sinatra.