diane keaton

Born on January 5, 1946, Angelina Diane Hall – her real last name is that of the character for which she was awarded an Oscar – is the eldest of the five children of a civil engineer and a housewife. She began to think about becoming an actress when she watched Katharine Hepburn ‘s movies as a child , because she loved the independent women with personality that she played. She says that she finally made up her mind when she saw her mother win in a housewives contest, which seemed very theatrical and imposted to her, which caused her to become definitely interested in the world of acting.

She graduated in 1964, from the Santa Ana Institute, where she had become Blanche, in a student performance of “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Although she began studying drama at Orange Coast College, she dropped out to try to make it in show business in New York, where she got her start as a nightclub singer. In the Big Apple she enrolled in acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse.

When she acted as a substitute in the musical “Hair” she caused some controversy, for acting dressed in the scenes in which the rest of the performers acted naked. Her career took a turn when she auditioned to star with Woody Allen in his play “Play it Again, Sam” (later made into a film as Seducer’s Dreams ). Apparently they were about to rule her out because she is 1.73, two inches taller than Allen, but due to her self-confidence they ended up giving her the role, with which she earned a Tony Award nomination.

She made her film debut in 1970 with Lovers and Other Strangers , although her first important role was given to her by Francis Ford Coppola , who wanted an actress for The Godfather who would give the character an eccentric touch, and she was then famous for being ‘crazy’. ‘. For her character of Kay Adams, Michael Corleone’s girlfriend, she remembers that she was inspired “by the same thing that she was feeling when shooting the movie, because she was a woman in a man’s world,” the actress declared.

Despite the enormous success of the film, he thought twice about participating in The Godfather II , due to the lack of attractiveness of his character. However, he changed his mind when the script was sent to him, as Kay was evolving and questioning the mafia activities of her already husband. She had a little more weight that way. “Diane Keaton was invisible in The Godfather and pale in The Godfather Part 2 ,” wrote a Time magazine reviewer.

After starting an affair with Woody Allen, she shot Seducer’s Dreams , The Sleepyhead and Boris Grushenko’s Last Night with him . But the cinema of the Manhattan genie takes a complete turn with his first comedy film with a dramatic background, Annie Hall , clearly based on his sentimental relationship with Keaton, and in whose script Allen incorporated, among other things, the humor with which the actress mocks Of her self. On the tape, she dresses as in real life, with her outdated men’s suits, her curious hats or her baggy pants. Curiously, she set a trend, because after the success of the film the actress became a benchmark for fashion designers who in the late 70s were encouraged to dress girls with male models.

The film won four Oscars, including the one for best actress for Keaton. She then tried to change the comedic image of herself with a dramatic role in Looking for Mr. Goodbar . She made two other films with Allen, Interiors and Manhattan , before breaking up with him and joining Warren Beatty , who cast her in the lead role in Reds , for which she was again nominated for an Oscar, shining as a housewife on the run from her husband to work as a reporter on the Russian Revolution. After the complicated filming of the tape, she put an end to her relationship with Beatty. She played an actress recruited by the Mossad in The Girl with the Drum , by George Roy Hill, the actress’s correct foray into the thriller, although it received negative reviews.

After The Godfather III , Diane Keaton retrained from the 90s, when she began to play mature roles in more conventional films to date, such as The Father of the Bride , The First Wives Club , His Mother, or Because I say so! . In almost all of them, she plays a middle-class mother. Highlights include her work as a terminally ill patient with leukemia in Marvin’s Room , for which she obtained a third Oscar nomination, and her reunion with Allen, because although she made a cameo for him in Días de Radio , playing a singer, she hadn’t been there for a long time. work with him when he co-starred in his memorable comedyManhattan Murder Mystery . She was nominated for a fourth Oscar for her work as a writer, the mother of a young girl dating an older man ( Jack Nicholson ), in When You Least Expect It .

Diane Keaton is a versatile woman who has published photography books. In addition, she began her career as a director with the documentary Heaven , about life after death. The actress, who was raised as a Methodist, sometimes declares that she is an atheist, but at other times expresses her agnosticism. Yes, she is always interested in religion and she assures that she shot this tape “because she was very religious when she was a child, and she wanted to go to heaven.” The always witty and cynical Allen said of her: “He believes in God, but he also believes that radio works because it has little people inside of it.”

After this documentary, Keaton signed as a director for some television piece, such as an episode of the Twin Peaks series , and the films Forced Heroes and Hanging , which she starred in with Meg Ryan and Lisa Kudrow .

Apart from her romances with Allen and Beatty, with whom she maintains a great friendship, Diane Keaton was also associated for a long time with Al Pacino , her partner in the Coppola saga. “I’ve never been married, but I should have, once,” Pacino said, referring to her affair with her. She manages to stay single quite well, but the death of her father made her reflect on the transience of her life, and she decided to become a mother, after 50, adopting two children. “Motherhood has completely changed me. It’s the most humbling experience,” explains Keaton.