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She showed how womanhood can be expansive and that the ‘rules’ are mostly imaginary. When she became a mother in her fifties, she reframed motherhood too and showed us how a life could be both unconventional and deeply meaningful too. Zoë Beaty reports
iane Keaton always marched a few beats off tempo. As the world mourns her sudden death at 79 this weekend, the way she lived her life – with a little mischief, a lot of grace, often without convention – is now being discussed with the same awe and affection that long followed her career. Much of her magnetism lay in her unpredictability and sweet originality: it would have been strange to see her “settling down” in the traditional sense, for instance, or to pick up her Oscar in anything other than two linen skirts, a linen jacket, a black string tie, scarf, and high heels worn with socks. That unpredictability was also in evidence in the way she became a mother.
Keaton didn’t have children in her twenties, thirties or even her forties as you might expect, but was well into her fifties – a time when most people would have assumed that the opportunity and impetus were long over. But by the time her decision was made, she was long past the point of being defined by the expectations of other people.
