Diane Keaton, the charismatic actress celebrated for her vibrant, often unconventional, and always charmingly self-deprecating screen presence, has passed away at the age of 79. Her illustrious career spanned roughly 100 film and television roles, earning her an Academy Award for her unforgettable performance in Woody Allen’s comedy Annie Hall. Keaton seamlessly navigated between uproarious comedies like Sleeper and The First Wives Club, and powerful dramas such as The Godfather and Marvin’s Room.
Dori Rath, who produced several of Ms. Keaton’s more recent films, confirmed her passing. Details regarding the time, location, or cause of death were not immediately disclosed.
At 31, Ms. Keaton, already a seasoned actress with eight films under her belt—primarily comedies—took on the titular role in Annie Hall (1977). Her portrayal of the ambitious, yet insecure and impeccably styled New Yorker, Annie, became legendary. Audiences adored Annie for her humorous psychiatric revelations, her distinctive menswear-inspired fashion, her notoriously poor driving, and the endearing echoes of her wholesome Midwestern roots.
Her acceptance outfit for the Oscar was as memorable as her performance: a distinctive ensemble featuring a linen jacket, two voluminous linen skirts, a scarf draped over a white shirt and black string tie, completed with high heels and socks. Reflecting on this moment in her 2014 memoir, Then Again, she referred to it, with characteristic self-awareness, as her "la-de-da layered get-up."
Annie Hall, which also clinched three other Academy Awards including Best Picture, brought Ms. Keaton a cascade of additional accolades. These included prestigious acting awards from the National Board of Review, the National Society of Film Critics, the New York Film Critics Circle, and the British Academy of Film and Television Artists.
In its review of the film, The Hollywood Reporter lauded Ms. Keaton as "the consummate actress of our generation," noting that her unique "charm, warmth, and spontaneity" were integral to making Annie Hall so believable and beloved.
While Ms. Keaton did not secure another Oscar win, she garnered three additional nominations throughout her career. One such nod was for the sweeping, Oscar-winning drama Reds (1981). In it, she portrayed Louise Bryant, an intense writer from the 1910s deeply immersed in the circles of Greenwich Village socialists and Bolshevik revolutionaries, appearing opposite activist journalist Jack Reed (played and directed by Warren Beatty).
She received another nomination for Marvin’s Room (1996), where she delivered a moving performance as a selfless daughter caring for her ailing father and eccentric aunt, only to face her own leukemia diagnosis requiring a bone-marrow transplant. Her impressive castmates included Meryl Streep, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Hume Cronyn.
Her third nomination recognized her work in Something’s Gotta Give (2003), a delightful comedy penned and directed by Nancy Meyers. Keaton played a successful playwright who masterfully transforms a heartbreaking breakup into a triumphant new stage comedy. In the film, her character not only captivates a handsome, considerably younger doctor (Keanu Reeves) but also inspires a notoriously sexist man in his sixties (Jack Nicholson) to find love with a woman his own age.
Beyond acting, Ms. Keaton also ventured into directing. Her debut behind the camera was Heaven (1987), a thought-provoking documentary exploring beliefs about the afterlife. Her final directorial effort was the comic drama Hanging Up (2000), an adaptation of Delia Ephron’s novel, in which she directed herself alongside Meg Ryan and Lisa Kudrow.
Her initial foray into fictional filmmaking, Unstrung Heroes (1995), featured Andie MacDowell, John Turturro, and Michael Richards. This poignant story of a teenage boy and his idiosyncratic uncles was honored with selection for Un Certain Regard, the prestigious sidebar at the Cannes Film Festival. Critics were charmed; Peter Travers of Rolling Stone declared it "works like a charm," while Rita Kempley of The Washington Post praised it as "sweet madness" and a "sensitive coming-of-age story."
A career in film was always Ms. Keaton’s true aspiration. She famously expressed her lifelong aversion to theater as a permanent pursuit during a 2010 interview on CBS Sunday Morning. Mimicking putting an imaginary gun to her head, she exclaimed, "Night after night? Doing a play? That’s my idea of hell."
Born Diane Hall in Los Angeles on January 5, 1946, she was the eldest of four children. Her father, John Newton Ignatius Hall, a civil engineer known as Jack, and her mother, Dorothy Deanne (Keaton) Hall, an accomplished amateur photographer who was once crowned Mrs. Los Angeles in a homemakers’ beauty pageant, raised her.
In her memoir, Ms. Keaton shared that her father affectionately nicknamed her "Perkins" and often called her "Di-annie."
Her formative years were spent in Santa Ana, California, just outside Los Angeles. She briefly enrolled in community colleges, first Santa Ana and then Orange Coast, before leaving at 19 to pursue acting studies at New York’s esteemed Neighborhood Playhouse.
Ms. Keaton’s Broadway debut came in the wildly successful musical Hair, where she first performed as part of the ensemble before stepping into the pivotal role of Sheila, the female lead. Notably, she declined a $50 bonus offered to actors willing to appear nude in a scene.
Her Broadway success paved the way for a significant partnership with Woody Allen, beginning with Play It Again, Sam (1969). In this production, she portrayed a charmingly desirable married woman opposite Mr. Allen, who played a neurotic, divorced friend. This memorable performance earned her a Tony Award nomination for best featured actress in a play.
Her cinematic journey began the following year in Lovers and Other Strangers (1970), where she appeared as a discontented young wife at a suburban wedding. After a few television roles, she landed the pivotal part of Kay Adams in Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpiece, The Godfather (1972). As Kay, the initially non-Sicilian girlfriend who evolves into the trusting wife of Michael Corleone (portrayed by Al Pacino), Keaton delivered a performance that became part of cinematic history. Interestingly, she and Mr. Pacino began a relationship in 1974, coinciding with the release of The Godfather Part II.
Despite the widespread acclaim for The Godfather, Ms. Keaton, with her characteristic humility, was far from enthusiastic about her own performance. Following the film’s release, she confessed to The Times, "Right from the beginning I thought I wasn’t right for the part. I haven’t seen the film. I just decided I would save myself the pain. I had to see a few scenes because I had to loop — dub in some dialogue — and I couldn’t stand looking at myself. I thought I looked so terrible, just like a stick in those ’40s clothes!"
Just three years later, in the same year that Annie Hall premiered, Keaton delivered a powerful, harrowing performance in the drama Looking for Mr. Goodbar. She played a young teacher who frequented singles bars nightly, a role that Molly Haskell of New York magazine hailed as "the performance of a lifetime," describing the film as "harrowing, powerful, appalling." It’s widely believed that many Oscar voters, despite awarding her for Annie Hall, were deeply impressed by Mr. Goodbar, recognizing its brilliance even if it was a difficult watch.
Ms. Keaton was a frequent collaborator in Woody Allen’s projects, including the film adaptation of Play It Again, Sam (1972), directed by Herbert Ross; Sleeper (1973), a comedy set in a dystopian future; and Love and Death (1975), an absurdist take set in czarist Russia. Her work with Allen extended to more serious dramas as well, such as Interiors (1978) and the critically acclaimed, multi-award-winning Manhattan (1979).
Despite humbly downplaying her early singing aspirations as misguided, Ms. Keaton showcased her vocal talents with two songs in Annie Hall and appeared as a 1940s nightclub singer in a memorable cameo in Mr. Allen’s Radio Days (1987). Their final film collaboration was Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993).
Beyond her iconic roles in Reds, Marvin’s Room, and the sequels to The Godfather (1974 and 1990), Keaton graced the screen in numerous other dramas, often imbued with a subtle satirical edge. These included Shoot the Moon (1982), where she and Albert Finney portrayed a troubled California couple navigating a divorce; Crimes of the Heart (1986), Bruce Beresford’s adaptation of Beth Henley’s Southern Gothic tale, in which she played the spinster sister to Jessica Lange and Sissy Spacek; and the mini-series The Young Pope (2016), where she brilliantly depicted a nun serving as personal secretary and confidante to the pontiff, played by Jude Law.
Yet, her remarkable talent for sophisticated farce was consistently put to excellent use. Prior to Something’s Gotta Give, she delighted audiences in other comedies either directed or written by Nancy Meyers. These included Baby Boom (1987), starring opposite Sam Shepard as a high-powered urban executive who unexpectedly inherits a baby and relocates to Vermont; and both Father of the Bride (1991) and its 1995 sequel, in which she co-starred with Steve Martin.
At a 2004 comedy festival in Aspen, Colorado, Nancy Meyers drew parallels between Ms. Keaton’s comedic prowess and that of earlier screen legends, Katharine Hepburn and Jean Arthur. Woody Allen, her frequent collaborator, went even further, telling The Times, "My opinion is that with the exception of Judy Holliday, she’s the finest screen comedienne we’ve ever seen."
Her diverse comedic filmography also featured Harry and Walter Go to New York (1975), a period piece set in the 1890s, co-starring James Caan and Elliott Gould; the ensemble dramedy The Family Stone (2005), with Dermot Mulroney, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Craig T. Nelson; 5 Flights Up (2014), opposite Morgan Freeman; and Poms (2019), a heartwarming comedy about a group of retirement-aged cheerleaders.
The First Wives Club (1996), a massive box-office success in which she starred alongside Goldie Hawn and Bette Midler, offered a potent blend of revenge and justice. In the film, Ms. Keaton’s character makes the shocking discovery that her trusted therapist is secretly having an affair with her estranged husband, fueling the film’s empowering narrative.
Her last film appearance was in Summer Camp (2024), a comedy centered on three longtime friends reuniting for an eventful getaway.
Ms. Keaton’s personal life, particularly her romantic relationships with figures like Warren Beatty, Woody Allen, and Al Pacino, often captivated the gossip columns. She never married, choosing instead to adopt two children, a son, Duke Keaton, and a daughter, Dexter Keaton. Full details regarding her survivors were not immediately released.
With characteristic self-deprecation, she quipped to People magazine in 2019, "Getting older hasn’t made me wiser. I don’t know anything, and I haven’t learned."
Despite her playful claim, over the years, Keaton authored a dozen or so books, exploring subjects from fashion, art, and architecture to deeply personal memoirs. In a 2014 review for The New York Times Book Review, Sheila Weller praised Ms. Keaton’s memoir Then Again as "provocatively honest," describing Keaton herself as "bitingly wry, ironic, and tough about herself."
In Then Again, Ms. Keaton reflected, "I learned I couldn’t shed light on love other than to feel its comings and goings and be grateful."
The memoir also allowed her to playfully challenge conventional wisdom, as she mused, "If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, does that mean mirrors are a waste of time?"
Nicole Sperling contributed reporting.
Correction: An earlier version of this obituary incorrectly stated the release year for Marvin’s Room as 1993; the correct year is 1996. Additionally, Nancy Meyers was the writer, not the director, of the film Baby Boom.