Actress Diane Keaton often seemed to have a claim on the daffy, quirky, and zany. She could seem ditzy and distracted, and her laugh did not always arrive at the most opportune time. Other thanMichael Jackson, perhaps no other star was as well known for wearing gloves for no obvious reason.
Yet in thefilmsthat made her reputation, Keaton was less the goofball than the unlikely straight woman. The actress, who died on Oct. 11 at 79, rose to stardom on the strength of her pairing with writer-directorWoody Allen. And when viewed beside Allen, Keaton could appear downright normal. In their films together, Allen portrayed himself as phobic, jumpy, and maladjusted, while he presented Keaton as comely, self-assured, and, though eccentric, appealing in her oddness. She was not only taller than Allen but sturdier, somehow — less liable to fall to pieces. In a classic scene in their 1977 Oscar-winning romantic comedyAnnie Hall, Allen reacts with feverish alarm to the escape of several live lobsters in his kitchen while Keaton laughs and laughs — and tries to take a photograph. Perhaps only in contrast to Woody Allen could Diane Keaton seem like the picture of stability, but in films ranging fromPlay It Again, Sam(1972) toSleeper(1973),Annie HalltoManhattan Murder Mystery(1993), she did.
If Allen had not seized on Keaton early in her career, it is difficult to imagine how long she might have lasted inHollywood. Born inLos Angelesin 1946 to John and Dorothy Hall — she was called “Diane” at birth, but the “Keaton” was a later surname substitution — she put in the time to study acting, but with or without training, she already possessed the sui generis quality that would soon grab Allen’s attention. On the heels of her appearance in the dopey, hippie-worshiping stage musicalHair, Keaton was cast as Allen’s leading lady inPlay It Again, Sam, first onBroadwayand then in the 1972 film version. Quickly, Allen realized the promise in this opposite: She was spunky where he was sullen, strangely glamorous where he was predictably nerdy. He cast her in his Nixon administration-era satireMen of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story(1971) and then in two classic farces,SleeperandLove and Death(1975). No film better illustrates the hilarious divide between Keaton and Allen than the scene inSleeperin which Allen, hiding out as a robot in an oppressive future society, is unloaded at the home of the demanding Keaton, who is mightily disappointed: “Oh, no,” Keaton says, not cruelly but blithely, “Is this the best they could offer? Oh geez, I’d hoped for something with at least decent features. Oh well, I guess I’ll bring you in next week and have your head removed.”
By the time ofSleeper, Keaton had already made inroads as a dramatic actress. She played the unhappily exiled wife of gangster Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) in Francis Ford Coppola’sThe Godfather(1972) andThe Godfather Part II(1974), but she was not featured to her full advantage in those films. She was incorporated into the ensemble, but can anyone say she was more memorable than Marlon Brando orRobert Duvall? By contrast, Keaton was the raison d’être ofAnnie Hall, whose title character was not only bequeathed the actress’s actual last name but also her many attractive attributes. The film was advertised as “a nervous romance,” but most of the nerves are found in Allen’s character. Keaton’s Annie is self-possessed enough to sing in a nightclub, assemble a wardrobe of bits and pieces of menswear, and, finally and fatally as far as Allen is concerned, move from New York to Los Angeles. Nonetheless, the film functions as an anthem to Keaton, who was awarded an Oscar for Best Actress.
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Even as Keaton appeared in other films, including the disposableHarry and Walter Go to New York(1976) and the more substantialLooking for Mr. Goodbar(1977), her professional partnership with Allen persisted. She was devastatingly glum in Allen’s dramaInteriors(1978) — depressed, one sensed, not just about her interpersonal relationships but about the state of the world — and attractively intellectual in his romantic comedyManhattan(1979). At some point, Keaton was displaced by Mia Farrow as Allen’s preferred leading lady, but somehow, her best performances remained those in which she was the unexpected stabilizing force in an off-kilter world: as journalist Louise Bryant in Warren Beatty’s Communist epicReds(1981), as the grounded, spinsterish sister in Bruce Beresford’sCrimes of the Heart(1986), and as the reasonable spouse of Steve Martin in the 1991 remake ofFather of the Brideand its 1995 sequel.
Then, in 1993, Allen — having fallen out with Farrow for assorted well-publicized reasons — brought Keaton back into the fold withManhattan Murder Mystery. Once again, he was agitated and apprehensive while she was a dogged master of detection in solving a crime in their apartment complex. As ever, they were a well-matched couple, though Keaton chose not to marry. (Despite never marrying, sheadopted two childrenwhen she was in her 50s.) Her later films are merely adequate, although when paired again with Beatty in 2001’sTown & Countryor with Jack Nicholson in 2003’sSomething’s Gotta Give, she still somehow was both the funniest and sanest person in the room.
Peter Tonguette is a contributing writer to theWashington Examinermagazine.
