Diane Keaton, the iconoclastic and left-of-center Oscar-winning film and fashion icon, has died, according to a family spokesperson who shared the news with People magazine. She was 79 years old. Further details about her death were not made available. She received four Academy Award nominations, winning in 1977 for “Annie Hall,” the film that turned her into a household name and one of the most recognizable figures in American movies. Keaton received an AFI Life Achievement Award in 2017.
Her collaborations with Woody Allen began onscreen with director Herbert Ross’ “Play It Again, Sam” in 1972, the same year she starred as Kay Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather.” Her comedic appeal was cemented in Allen films — the two were also romantically involved — like “Sleeper’ and “Love and Death” before the title character in “Annie Hall” changed the course of her career and the course of movies.
She also received Oscar nominations for “Reds,” “Marvin’s Room,” and “Something’s Gotta Give,” the Nancy Meyers film largely seen as her big-screen comeback in 2003. That was also the film that launched a late-career stretch of romantic comedies and movies for older audiences in which she largely plays a version of herself: neurotic, quirky, unfiltered, and in impeccable head-to-toe tailoring. The recent “Book Club” films exemplify her late-career personal stamp.
She also had credits behind the camera, including as the director of “Hanging Up” and the documentary “Heaven” as well as episodic television, including on Season 2 episodes of “Twin Peaks” in its early run.
More to come…