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| Birth Name(s) : Diane Hall |
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Full Diane Keaton Biography
Diane Keaton (born Diane Hall on January 5, 1946) is an American 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's breakthrough role came 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, 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."Diane Keaton and Woody Allen in 1977's Annie Hall. "La-de-dah" became Keaton's popular catch phrase.
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 70s 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 explained 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.
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.
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 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 the best comic film actresses alive."
Most recently, Keaton starred in the moderately successful 2005 comedy The Family Stone with Sarah Jessica Parker. Her latest film, Because I Said So, co-starring Mandy Moore, opened on February 2, 2007 to poor reviews.
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 is not related to actor Michael Keaton. Like Diane, Michael used an alternative surname to remove confusion with another well-known actor. In fact, Michael had decided to select "Keaton" after reading an article about Diane in 1979.
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. |
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