Paul GlynnCulture reporter
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Woody Allen and Diane Keaton in Annie Hall
US actor and director Woody Allen has paid a lengthy, glowing tribute to Diane Keaton, who died on Saturday aged 79.
Writing in The Free Press, Allen described Keaton as “unlike anyone the planet has experienced or is unlikely to ever see again,” adding that “her face and laugh illuminated any space she entered”.
In a long personal essay, Allen recalled first meeting Keaton in 1969 during rehearsals for his play Play It Again, Sam before going on to make eight films with her including Annie Hall, for which she won best actress at the 1977 Academy Awards.
“As time went on I made movies for an audience of one, Diane Keaton,” wrote Allen.
“I never read a single review of my work and cared only what Keaton had to say about it.”
In Annie Hall, Keaton played the role of the film’s quirky, insecure and free-spirited titular star, who Allen’s character, Alvy Singer, falls in love with.
The pair were at one point romantically involved in real life.
Reminiscing on the first time they met, Allen remembered thinking: “If Huckleberry Finn [writer Mark Twain’s fictional vagabond] was a gorgeous young woman, he’d be Keaton.”
He added that the world was now a “drearier” place without her in it.
“Still, there are her movies. And her great laugh still echoes in my head.”
She starred in other Allen titles such as Manhattan, Sleeper, Love and Death and Radio Days.
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The pair pictured together on the set of comedy film Sleeper in 1973
Keaton remained a supporter of Allen, a controversial figure, who was accused of molesting his daughter Dylan, which he has always denied.
No charges have ever been brought against the star.
She told the Guardian in 2023: “He gave me everything. He really did. Woody made it loose. That helped me enormously.”
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Los Angeles-born Keaton shot to fame in the early 1970s through her role as Kay Adams-Corleone in the Godfather films, before going on to feature in movies like Father of the Bride and The First Wives Club.
Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola, like fellow US filmmaker Allen, also paid tribute to the “extraordinary” actress over the weekend.
In a post shared on social media, Coppola wrote: “Words can’t express the wonder and talent of Diane Keaton. Endlessly intelligent, so beautiful.
“From her earliest performances in Hair and throughout her amazing career, she was an extraordinary actor.”
He said he had seen her performance in the film Lovers and Other Strangers and “knew” that he “had to have her play Kay in The Godfather”; adding that Keaton later told him she had based her portrayal on his own wife, documentary maker Eleanor Coppola, who died last year.
He noted her “wonderful work in Annie Hall” while simultaneously “setting a new fashion trend.”
“Everything about Diane was creativity personified.”
