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Diane Keaton

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   Diane Keaton
   Birth name Diane Hall
   Born       5 January 1946
              Los Angeles, California, USA
   Academy
    Awards    Best Actress, 1977
              Annie Hall

   Diane Keaton (born January 5, 1946), is an American Oscar-winning film
   actress, director and producer. Keaton began her career on stage, and
   made her screen debut in 1970. Her first major film role was as Kay
   Adams 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 (1972). Her next two films for Allen, Sleeper (1973)
   and Love and Death (1975), established her as a comic actress. Her
   fourth, Annie Hall (1977), won her the Academy Award for Best Actress.
   Keaton has claimed that she is "tailor-made for comedy".

   Keaton took on different kinds of roles to avoid becoming typecast as
   her Annie Hall persona. She became an accomplished dramatic actress,
   starting 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 Father of the Bride (1991), The First Wives
   Club (1996), and Something's Gotta Give (2003). Keaton's films 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,
   and occasional singer.

Early life and education

   Born Diane Hall in Los Angeles, California, Keaton is the oldest of
   four children. Her father Jack Hall (1921–1990) was a civil engineer,
   and her mother Dorothy Keaton (b. 1921) was a homemaker and amateur
   photographer. Her father came from an Irish American Catholic
   background, and her mother 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 claimed 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 1964 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 in a cameo in Radio Days (1987).

   Keaton began studying acting at the Neighbourhood Playhouse in New York
   City. She initially studied acting under the Meisner technique, an
   ensemble acting technique made popular in the 1920s by Sanford Meisner,
   a New York acting director. 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 Jack Nicholson, "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 an understudy on the original Broadway
   production of Hair. She gained some notoriety for her refusal to
   disrobe in the portions of the musical when the entire cast performed
   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.

Career

1970s

   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. In 1971 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, and won the Best Picture Oscar of 1972.

   Two years later she reprised her role in The Godfather, Part II. She
   was initially reluctant to reprise her role, 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 had 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 a film version of Play It Again, Sam.
   Allen has gone on to credit Keaton as his muse during his early film
   career.

   In 1977, Keaton starred with Allen in the romantic comedy Annie Hall,
   in which she played one of her most famous roles. Annie Hall was
   written and directed by Allen, her paramour at the time, 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":


   Diane Keaton

    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.


   Diane Keaton

   Keaton's eccentric fashion from Annie Hall made her an unlikely fashion
   icon of the late 1970s. Keaton is known to favour 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.") Her Annie Hall
   wardrobe in the film consisted mainly of vintage men's clothing,
   including neckties, vests, baggy pants, and fedora hats. Most of the
   clothing seen in the film came from Keaton herself, who was already
   known for her tomboyish 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. 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. Keaton also became a frequent target of
   fashion critic Mr. Blackwell, having made his annual "Worst Dressed
   List" on five occasions.

   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 accepted a 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:


   Diane Keaton

    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.


   Diane Keaton

   In addition to acting, Keaton has stated that "[I] had a lifelong
   ambition to be a singer." She had a brief career as a recording artist
   in the late 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.

1980s

   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 of
   him in Reds. In the film she played Louise Bryant, a journalist and
   suppressed housewife in 1917, 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."

   In 1984, The Little Drummer Girl, Keaton's unsuccessful 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." Two years later she starred in Crimes of the
   Heart, a moderately successful comedy with Jessica Lange and Sissy
   Spacek. 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 newborn baby. 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." She went on to direct music
   videos for artists such as Belinda Carlisle, two television films
   starring Patricia Arquette, and episodes of China Beach and Twin Peaks.
   Outside of film and television, Keaton is also a published
   photographer. One of Keaton's earliest ambitions is photography, 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 began her career as a photographer when Rolling Stone
   magazine requested a spread from Keaton. Reservations, her first
   photography book, was published in 1980. Reservations consisted of
   images of hotel lobbies. She has published several more collections of
   her own photographs, and has also served as an editor for collections
   of vintage photographs. Among the works she has edited include a
   collections of photographs by paparazzi Ron Galella and a collection of
   clown artwork.

1990s

   By the 1990s, Keaton had established herself as one of the most popular
   and versatile actresses 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 typecast, 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 1991 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 21 years after the events 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 1987. Her part was intended for Mia Farrow, but Farrow
   dropped out of the project after her notorious separation from Allen.

   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 favour 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 even 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] the best comic
   film actresses alive." She also directed Unstrung Heroes that year, her
   first theatrically released narrative film.

   Also in 1996, Keaton starred with Meryl Streep in Marvin's Room, as a
   woman with leukemia. 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 her third Academy
   Award nomination for the film. Although critically acclaimed, Keaton
   said that the biggest challenge of the role was understanding the
   mentality of a person with terminal illness.

2000s

   Keaton's first film of 2000 was Hanging Up 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.
   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 once again in Town &
   Country, a critical and financial fiasco. Budgeted at an estimated
   US$90 million, the film opened to little notice and grossed only $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".

   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 first and 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.

   Most recently, Keaton starred in the moderately successful 2005 comedy
   The Family Stone with Sarah Jessica Parker.

   Keaton has also served as a producer on films and television series.
   She produced the FOX series Pasadena, which was cancelled 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."

   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 will receive the Film Society of Lincoln Centre's Gala Tribute in
   2007.

Personal life

Relationships and family

   While Keaton has never been married, she has had some high-profile
   relationships nonetheless. Keaton's most famous romance was with
   director Woody Allen for most of the 1970s. Keaton and Allen first met
   during Keaton's 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 went on to produce
   eight films together between 1971 to 1993. After Keaton's working
   relationship with Woody Allen diminished 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 to which she was unaccustomed. (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, but describes Allen as one of her
   closest friends.

   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, a daughter, Dexter (adopted 1996), and a 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 like the most completely
   humbling experience that I've ever had."

Religious Affiliation

   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 she
   considered herself an agnostic.

   Although raised a Methodist, in an October 2002 television interview
   with Oxygen Keaton stated that she currently considers herself an
   atheist.

   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 advocate against plastic surgery. 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 a former home of 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.

   Starting in the summer of 2006, Keaton will be the new face of L'Oreal.

Selected filmography

   Year Film Role Other notes
   1970 Lovers and Other Strangers Joan Vecchio Bit part
   1972 The Godfather Kay Adams
   Play It Again, Sam Linda Christie
   1973 Sleeper Luna Schlosser
   1974 The Godfather, Part II Kay Adams
   1975 Love and Death Sonja
   1977 Annie Hall Annie Hall Academy Award - Best Actress
   Looking for Mr. Goodbar Theresa Dunn
   1978 Interiors Renata
   1979 Manhattan Mary Wilkie
   1981 Reds Louise Bryant Academy Award nomination - Best Actress
   1984 The Little Drummer Girl Charlie
   1986 Crimes of the Heart Lenny Magrath
   1987 Radio Days New Year's Singer Cameo
   Baby Boom J.C. Wiatt
   Heaven   Documentary film, also writer/director
   1988 The Good Mother Anna Dunlap
   1990 The Godfather, Part III Kay Adams
   The Lemon Sisters Eloise Hamer
   1991 Father of the Bride Nina Banks
   1993 Manhattan Murder Mystery Carol Lipton
   1995 Father of the Bride Part II Nina Banks
   1996 The First Wives Club Annie Paradis
   Marvin's Room Bessie Greenfield Academy Award nomination - Best Actress
   1999 The Other Sister Elizabeth Tate
   2000 Hanging Up Georgia Mozell Also director
   2001 Town & Country Ellie Stoddard
   2003 Something's Gotta Give Erica Jane Barry Academy Award nomination -
   Best Actress
   Elephant   Executive producer
   2005 The Family Stone Sybil Stone
   2007 Because I Said So Daphne Wilder
   2007 Mama's Boy Jan Mannus
   Preceded by:
   Faye Dunaway
   for Network Academy Award for Best Actress
               1977
               for Annie Hall                 Succeeded by:
                                             Jane Fonda
                                             for Coming Home
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