German collector card by Kino.
American postcard by Coral-Lee, Rancho Cordova, CA, no. 40-1979. Photo: Douglas Kirkland / Contact.
The wife of the Godfather
Diane Keaton was born Diane Hall in Los Angeles in 1946. Keaton was the eldest of four children. Her father, Jack Hall, was a civil engineer, and her mother, Dorothy Keaton, was a housewife and amateur photographer. Keaton studied drama at Santa Ana College, but left after three semesters at the age of nineteen to pursue a career in Manhattan. She had to change her name when she wanted to register with the actors' union, as there was already a Diane Hall registered, and the union required that, to avoid confusion, no two people with the same name could be registered. She chose the name ‘Keaton’, her mother's maiden name.
In New York, she took classes at the Neighborhood Playhouse theatre school. She also worked as a singer for a short time during those years. In 1968, she landed a supporting role and became an understudy for one of the leading roles in the successful Broadway rock musical 'Hair'. She gained some notoriety as the only actress who refused to undress when all the other actors were naked. In 1969, Woody Allen asked her to star in his play 'Play It Again, Sam'. For this, she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. Around that time, she began a relationship with Allen. While performing in this play, she received many offers from Hollywood and in 1970, she played her first film role in the comedy Lovers and Other Strangers (Cy Howard, 1970), starring Gig Young and Bea Arthur. That same year, she appeared in a commercial for deodorant.
Diane Keaton had her big breakthrough when Francis Ford Coppola cast her as Kay Adams-Corleone, the wife of mafia boss Michael Corleone, in The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972). The film is based on the book of the same name by Mario Puzo. Keaton told People magazine in 2022 that she had not read the bestseller before being cast in the role. ‘I didn't know anything about it. I just auditioned. That was great for me. And then I had to read the book,’ Keaton said. The Godfather was a huge financial and critical success, winning the Academy Award for Best Picture, among other awards. She also played this role in the other two parts of the trilogy, The Godfather Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974) and The Godfather Part III (Francis Ford Coppola, 1990).
In 1972, she also starred alongside Woody Allen in the film version of Play It Again, Sam (Herbert Ross, 1972). Although their relationship had ended by the time they made the film, the two remained very close. Allen would cast her several times in eccentric roles in his comedy films during the 1970s, including Sleeper (Woody Allen, 1973), Love and Death (Woody Allen, 1975), Interiors (Woody Allen, 1978) and Manhattan (Woody Allen, 1979).
The most famous film they made together is Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977). The story revolves around the troubled relationship between Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) and Annie Hall (Diane Keaton). Keaton started a fashion trend with her tomboy clothing style, which included cardigans, ties and fedora hats. She won an Oscar for her role as Annie Hall. ‘It was an idealised version of myself,’ she said of her role in an interview. In total, they collaborated on eight films. Her friendship with Allen remained very strong. She always stood by him, even after the allegations of sexual abuse he allegedly committed against his adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow.
French poster card by Editions F. Nugeron, no. E 168. Poster designed by Neil Fujita for Paramount / Cinema International Corp. Poster for The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972), starring Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, and many others. In France, the film was released as Le Parrain. The puppet master's hand logo for the film was already used for the book cover of the novel by Mario Puzo, on which the film was based.
Alternating acting with directing
Diane Keaton feared that she would be known primarily as a comedienne. In 1977, she took on the lead role as a promiscuous teacher in the controversial drama Looking for Mr. Goodbar (Richard Brooks, 1977) with Richard Gere, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination. In 1979, after the filming of Manhattan, her long working relationship with Woody Allen came to an end. It was not until 1993 that the two would work together again. In the late 1970s, she began a relationship with Warren Beatty, with whom she would co-star in Reds (Warren Beatty, 1981). For her role as radical journalist Louise Bryant, she received both a Golden Globe and an Academy Award nomination.
In the 1980s, she appeared in only a few films. She starred in the action thriller The Little Drummer Girl (George Roy Hill, 1984), but the film was not a great success. Crimes of the Heart (Bruce Beresford, 1986) was a minor success, in which she appeared alongside Jessica Lange and Sissy Spacek. In 1987, she had a big hit with the comedy Baby Boom (Charles Shyer, 1987), about a career woman who suddenly has to take care of a baby. That same year, she had a cameo as a nightclub singer in Woody Allen's Radio Days (1987). The Good Mother (Leonard Nimoy, 1988) was a critical and financial disappointment.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, she alternated acting with directing. In 1987, she directed her first film, a documentary, Heaven, about life after death. In the years that followed, she also directed television films, music videos, including Belinda Carlisle's ‘Heaven is a Place on Earth’, and episodes of TV series, including an episode of Twin Peaks. In 1995, she directed her first theatrically released feature film, Unstrung Heroes, a sensitive drama about a son who loses his mother to a serious illness. As an actress, she appeared as Steve Martin's wife in Father of the Bride (Charles Shyer, 1991) and its sequel, Father of the Bride Part II (Charles Shyer, 1995). She reunited with Woody Allen in Manhattan Murder Mystery (Woody Allen, 1993), after Mia Farrow, originally slated to play the lead, dropped out following her and Allen's notorious breakup. In 1996, she starred alongside Goldie Hawn and Bette Midler in her biggest commercial success of the decade, the comedy The First Wives Club (Hugh Wilson, 1996). That same year, she received her third Academy Award nomination for her role as a leukaemia patient in the film Marvin's Room (Jerry Zaks, 1996) with Meryl Streep, Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro.
In 2000, Diane Keaton starred in and directed the film Hanging Up, starring Meg Ryan and Lisa Kudrow. The film wasn't a huge success, nor was Town & Country (Peter Chelsom, 2001), in which she reunited with Warren Beatty. Keaton had her first real hit since 1996 with the film Something's Gotta Give (Nancy Meyers, 2003) starring Jack Nicholson. The romantic comedy garnered attention due to the age of its leads (Keaton was 57 at the time, Nicholson 66), which was considered a bold choice for a romantic comedy. It was also the first film in which Keaton had a nude scene. She briefly appeared topless. Keaton received her fourth Academy Award nomination for this film. In 2003, she also executive-produced Gus Van Sant's drama Elephant, which received several awards at the Cannes Film Festival. Later, Keaton starred in the film Mad Money (Callie Khouri, 2008), starring Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes. Michael Douglas co-starred with her in the romantic comedy And So It Goes (Rob Reiner, 2014). Her final film was the quirky comedy Summer Camp (Castille Landon, 2024) with Kathy Bates and Alfre Woodard.
Keaton had relationships with Woody Allen, Al Pacino and Warren Beatty, who, according to her, came into her life at different ‘decades’. ‘Woody was my twenties, Warren my thirties, and Al my late thirties and early forties,’ she told the British newspaper The Telegraph in 2003. She never married. Later in life, she said that she realised that men were not important in her life. ‘I remember when I was young, I had this ridiculous belief that you would find someone to grow old with. Not being married doesn't make my life any less fulfilling. That old spinster myth is nonsense.’ At the age of fifty, in 1996, she adopted her daughter Dexter, followed five years later by her son Duke. Motherhood had, in her own words, completely changed her. Like her mother, Keaton was interested in photography. In 1980, her photographs were published in a book, 'Reservations'. A second book, 'Still Life', appeared in 1983. She wrote a memoir about her relationship with her alcoholic brother Randy, 'Brother & Sister' (2020). In it, she published a letter that her brother wrote to her after seeing her in one of her films: "There are times in Reds (1981) when I wanted to stop the projector, so the moment wouldn't move so fast. Where did you learn to use your face so well? I think you ran across every emotion in the book, then threw the book away and made up some of your own". When a journalist read the letter back to her, Diane could barely hold back her tears when she responded, "That was sweet of him. I don't know what to say....I'm sorry." Diane Keaton died on 11 October 2025, in California, at the age of 79.
American poster postcard by Broadway Star, New York. Media Comm +. This poster has Italian text. The original design was by Burt Kleeger for Joseph Caroff Associates / United Artists Europe Inc. Poster for Manhattan (Woody Allen 1979), starring Allen himself, Diane Keaton and Mariel Hemingway.
French postcard by Editions Mercuri, no. 341. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Diane Keaton and Mel Gibson in Mrs. Soffel (Gillian Armstrong, 1984).
Sources: Tony Fontana (IMDb), NOS (Dutch), Wikipedia (Dutch) and IMDb.
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