Idiosyncratic American actor who starred in the film classics Annie Hall, The Godfather and Reds
‘Too tall and too ‘kooky’” – that was a casting director’s verdict on Diane Keaton in the late 1960s. Either she was ahead of the curve or she bent the world gently to her will, but within a few years she was a star.
Keaton, who has died aged 79, appeared in both the year-long stage run and the film adaptation of the comedy Play It Again, Sam (1972). This began her long association – spanning one play, eight movies, a romance and more than half a century of friendship – with its author, Woody Allen. He later gave her what became her signature role in Annie Hall (1977), for which she won the best actress Oscar.
Recalling her audition for Play It Again, Sam, Allen described her as “adorable, funny, totally original in style, real, fresh … One talks about a personality that lights up a room, she lit up a boulevard.”
In the same year as the film of Play It Again, Sam, she was also heartbreaking as Kay, the ingenuous but ultimately crushed and neglected wife of Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), son of a Mafia don, in The Godfather.
