Diane Keaton death: Woody Allen, Bette Midler and Goldie Hawn among co-stars to pay emotional tribute
Keaton’s longtime collaborator, Allen, is reportedly ‘extremely distraught’ over her death
Beloved actor Diane Keaton has died at the age of 79 in California.
Annie Hall and Manhattan director Woody Allen, Keaton’s frequent collaborator, has hailed the star as “unique” in tribute, while Bette Midler, who starred with Keaton in The First Wives Club, described her as “brilliant, beautiful, extraordinary”.
Friends told People magazine that Keaton’s health had “declined very suddenly” in her final months. Her family “chose to keep things very private,” and even some of her longtime friends “weren’t fully aware of what was happening,” one friend told the outlet.
Keaton rose to fame in the 1970s and starred in classic films such as The First Wives Club and Francis Ford Coppola’s mafia epic The Godfather.
She also enjoyed a decades-long collaboration with controversial director Woody Allen, and received an Academy Award for her role in Annie Hall in 1978.
She is survived by her two children, Dexter, 29, and Duke, 25.
Watch: Reese Witherspoon tells fans to watch a Diane Keaton movie in honour of the late actor
Reese Witherspoon honoured one of her first mentors on stage in LA on Saturday (11 October).
“The thing I just loved about her is she was such an original,” she said.
Watch the full clip here...
First Wives Club stars honour their co-star
There is no trio more formidable than that at the centre of the 2996 comedy-drama First Wives Club, played by Keaton, Goldie Hawn, and Bette Midler.
In the wake of her death, Keaton’s co-stars have shared heartwarming messages.
Midler wrote on Instagram: “She was hilarious, and completely without guile, or any of the competitiveness one would have expected from such a star. What you saw was who she was…oh, la, lala!”
Meanwhile, Hawn added: “We agreed to grow old together, and one day, maybe live together with all our girlfriends. Well, we never got to live together, but we did grow older together. Who knows… maybe in the next life.”
A 'heartbreaking' loss for Michael Douglas
Also paying tribute to the actor is Michael Douglas who starred opposite Keaton in the 2014 romcom And So It Goes.
Douglas called the loss “heartbreaking”, hailing the late actor as “one of the greatest icons in our history”.
'Dream home for sale'
Diane Keaton reportedly put her dream home up for sale in the months leading up to her death.
In March, the actor listed her five-bedroom, seven-bathroom property in Los Angeles for £29m. Although she was a seasoned house-flipper, the listing came as a surprise given the enormous amount of love and effort she put into personally renovating it – an eight-year process she documented in her bestselling book The House that Pinterest Built.
Watch: Meryl Streep’s ‘beautiful’ speech about Diane Keaton in 2017
Meryl Streep’s ‘beautiful’ speech about Diane Keaton goes viral after her death
Read: The Independent's tribute to Diane Keaton
Audiences adored her scatterbrained charm, sing-song neuroses and stylish menswear – but beyond that beloved persona lay a restless, more complex artist than romcoms often gave her credit for. Hopefully in death the scope of Keaton's work and interests will be more widely appreciated, writes Adam White
Diane Keaton was strange, surreal and complicated – her lesser-known work is proof
Steve Martin shares heartwarming memory of Keaton
Steve Martin, who co-starred alongside Keaton and Martin Short in the 1991 family comedy classic Father of the Bride and its 1995 sequel, shared a heartwarming memory that he said “sums up our delightful relationship with Keaton.”
In an Instagram post shared Saturday, Martin posted a screenshot from an old Interview magazine interview between Short and Keaton, in which the former asks, “Who’s sexier, me or Steve Martin?”
“I mean, you’re both idiots,” Keaton quips.
Rose Bryne thanks Keaton for 'indelible' movie Baby Boom
Emmy-nominated actor Rose Byrne remembered Keaton’s movie Baby Boom as one of her favorite childhood films.
“I loved this movie Baby Boom so much growing up. I would watch it on repeat and can quote it to this day,” she wrote on her Instagram Story, alongside a still of Keaton from the movie.
“It was before its time. Indelible. Thank you Diane Keaton.”
Keaton led the 1987 romcom from the late Charles Shyer, who also directed her in the Father of the Bride film series, about a New York workaholic whose life takes an unexpected turn when a relative’s sudden death leaves her the caretaker of their baby girl.
Throwback clip shows Keaton being her goofy, lovable self
Australian journalist Laura Brown shared a behind-the-scenes clip of Keaton goofing around during an old photoshoot.
In the video, Keaton is wearing a pile of hats on her head, leaning back and forth as if the weight of the hats is too heavy.
“Diane, what a gift you were,” Brown captioned the post.
Keaton's health battles throughout the years
Over the years, Keaton had spoken openly about her struggles with bulimia and bouts of skin cancer.
“All I did was feed my hunger, so I am an addict,” she told Dr. Oz in 2014. “It’s true. I’m an addict in recovery, I’ll always be an addict. I have an addictive nature to me.”
She recalled how she consumed 2,000 calories a day, before purging afterward.
“Somebody mentioned that I seemed to have some mental issues, so I went to an analyst,” she shared. “I would go five days a week.”
The following year, Keaton told the Los Angeles Times about her history with basal cell carcinoma, which she was first diagnosed with at just 21.
“It’s a family history,” she said in 2015. “I remember my Auntie Martha had skin cancer so bad they removed her nose. My father had basal skin cancer and my brother had it. It’s tricky with this skin cancer. That’s why you’ve got to put the sunblock on.”
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