She’s been called a treasure, a style icon, and one of the big screen’s greatest actresses. And now, Diane Keaton stands poised to celebrate a very special milestone.
Happy Birthday, Diane Keaton!
And that’s because she was born on January 5, 1946, in Los Angeles, California, which means that this loveable, self-confessed kook, is turning 75 years old today! Diane Hall spent several of her post-high school years attending local colleges before deciding to throw caution to the wind and relocate to New York City.
There, she adopted her mother’s maiden name, Keaton (since there already existed a performer named Diane Hall), found employment as a singer at various nightclubs, and studied the acting craft at Sanford Meisner’s renowned Neighborhood Playhouse.
In 1968, Keaton accepted the opportunity to understudy Lynn Kellogg in the original Broadway production of Hair and appear on stage as a dancer/singer. During her nine-month tenure with the show, Keaton became known for being the one female cast member who declined to disrobe during the finale of Act One, meaning that she missed out on the $50 “nudity bonus.”
Afterward, Keaton successfully auditioned for a part in Woody Allen’s production of Play It Again, Sam – though her height nearly cost her the part. At 5 ft 8 in, she stood two inches taller than Allen.
In 1970, Keaton appeared in her first motion picture, Lovers and Other Strangers. Two years later, she won the role of Kay Adams, the girlfriend and eventual wife of Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather. Keaton would reprise the role in two sequels: The Godfather Part II (1974) and The Godfather Part III (1990).
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A professional reunion with Woody Allen in 1972, which saw them adapt Play It Again, Sam for the silver screen, would forever cement Keaton’s status as a comedic dynamo. The pair would go on to collaborate on a total of eight films, including Annie Hall (1977), for which Keaton would win the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Among Keaton’s numerous other acting credits are the features Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977), which helped establish her as a dramatic performer, Reds (1981), an autobiographical picture co-starring Warren Beatty, The First Wives Club (1996), Something’s Gotta Give (2003), and the animated juggernaut Finding Dory (2016).
Keaton made her directorial debut with the documentary What Does Dorrie Want? (1982). That was followed by Heaven (1987), a documentary about the possibility of an afterlife.
In the ensuing years, Keaton dedicated herself to her directing vocation, and her substantial oeuvre includes music videos for recording artist Belinda Carlisle – most notably the chart-topping Heaven Is A Place on Earth – episodes of China Beach and Twin Peaks, the made-for-television film Wildflower (which marked Reese Witherspoon’s introduction to a TV audience), and the features Unstrung Heroes (1995) and Hanging Up (2000).
Keaton is also an avid amateur photographer, whose work has been compiled in book form, and a memoirist with three volumes – Then Again (2011), Let’s Just Say It Wasn’t Pretty (2014), and Brother & Sister (2020) – to her credit.
Entertainment Hub would like to wish Diane Keaton a very happy birthday, and you can too by clicking on the Twitter link below.
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