Actress Diane Keaton, known for her Oscar-winning performance in 1977’s “Annie Hall” and her role in “The Godfather” films, has died at age 79, People magazine reported Saturday.
Details were not immediately available and Keaton’s loved ones have asked for privacy, a family spokesperson told People, which confirmed that the actress died in California.
Details were not immediately available and Keaton’s loved ones have asked for privacy, a family spokesperson told People, which confirmed that the actress died on Saturday in California.
Keaton was a frequent collaborator of director Woody Allen, portraying the titular character in “Annie Hall,” the charming girlfriend of Allen’s comic Alvy Singer.
The film also garnered Oscars for best picture, best director and best original screenplay, cementing Keaton’s place as one of the industry’s top actresses and an offbeat style icon as well.
The actress made her mark co-starring in eight Allen movies, from “Play It Again, Sam” (1972) to “Manhattan” (1979) and “Manhattan Murder Mystery” (1993).
In “The Godfather” films, she played Kay Adams, the girlfriend and eventual wife of Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone.
Apart from the Allen cannon, fans adored her portrayal as Steve Martin’s wife in 1991 comedy “Father of the Bride,” as the nervous and doting couple plan an extravagant wedding for their daughter.
Late in her career, Keaton starred in two movies about aging women: “Book Club” (2018), with its message that love has no age, and “Poms” (2019), the story of a terminally ill woman who moves to a retirement community to die, but winds up forming a cheerleading squad.
A BAFTA and Golden Globe winner, Keaton scored Oscar nominations three other times for best actress, for “Reds,” “Marvin’s Room” and “Something’s Gotta Give.”
In 2017, she was honored with a Life Achievement Award by the American Film Institute, which called Keaton “unconventional, iconoclastic and left-of-center.”
“I feel so lucky to have spent any time with this marvelous woman, and I’m heartbroken that she is gone,” said actress Andie MacDowell, who starred in “Unstrung Hero” (1995), one of a handful of films Keaton directed.
As the Hollywood sexual harassment scandals detonated in late 2017, cascading from producer Harvey Weinstein to heavyweight actors like Kevin Spacey, old accusations of child sex abuse against Allen by his adoptive daughter Dylan resurfaced.
