From Annie Hall to The First Wives Club, Keaton’s performances redefined what it meant to be funny, stylish and unapologetically oneself. Our writers pay tribute to a one-off star who made eccentricity irresistible
Laura Snapes
The first person I texted about Diane Keaton’s death was my mum. Our love of her films is pretty much the only cultural taste I inherited from her. I was about 10 when she first let me watch a VHS off the grown-up shelf. She picked Baby Boom. I might wonder what the appeal of a film about a high-flying 80s businesswoman inheriting a baby was to a kid – were it not so plainly funny, spanning Keaton’s talents from screwball to synonymous with comfort, and a curious lens on adult life. My next Keaton was Father of the Bride I and II, which made Keaton – and Steve Martin – feel even more like my movie parents.
As a teenager I got into her Woody Allen roles, but I confess I’ve never seen most of her serious work. Instead, it’s her dalliances with the indignities of ageing – in Book Club, Hampstead – that I watch with my mum and nana. Keaton felt so ingrained in my life, not to mention showing that you can be lovable as a deeply idiosyncratic woman existing outside conventional beauty standards; I can’t imagine crying about the death of any other actor. Last night, mum texted me to say she had just finished Baby Boom and was about to start Something’s Gotta Give. At that exact moment, I was watching the credits roll on the latter.
