Actors - Diane Keaton

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	Actors - Diane Keaton

Diane Keaton (born January 5, 1946) is an American film producer, director, and actor. Keaton began her career as a stage actor, and made her screen debut in 1970.

Keaton's first major film role was as Kay Adams in The Godfather
(1972), but the films that shaped her early career were those with director and co-star Woody Allen. Films such as Sleeper (1973), Love and Death
(1975), and her Academy Award-winning performance in Annie Hall
established her as a comic actor. Keaton has also claimed that she is "tailor-made for comedy" but is also an accomplished dramatic actor with films such as Looking for Mr. Goodbar
(1977) and Reds
(1981). Some of her popular recent films include Father of the Bride
(1991), The First Wives Club
(1996), Marvin's Room
(1996), and Something's Gotta Give
(2003).

Early life and education

Born Diane Hall in Los Angeles, California, Keaton is the oldest of four children. Her father Jack Hall (1921–1990) was a civil engineer, and her mother Dorothy Keaton (b. 1921) was a homemaker and amateur photographer. Her father came from an Irish American Catholic background, and her mother came from a Methodist family. Keaton was raised a Methodist by her mother. Her first ambition to become an actor came after seeing her mother win the "Mrs. Los Angeles" pageant for homemakers. Keaton claimed that the theatricality of the event inspired her to become a stage actor. She has also credited Katherine Hepburn as one of her inspirations, whom she admires for playing strong and independent women.

Keaton is a 1964 graduate of Santa Ana High School in Santa Ana, California. During her time there she participated in singing and acting clubs at school, and starred as Blanche in a school production of A Streetcar Named Desire. After graduation she attended Santa Ana College, and later Orange Coast College as an acting student, but dropped out after a year to pursue an entertainment career in Manhattan. Upon joining the Actors' Equity Association she adopted the surname of Keaton, her mother's maiden name, as there was already a registered Diane Hall. For a brief time, she also moonlighted nightclubs with a singing act. She would later revisit her act when she made a cameo in Radio Days
(1987) as a nightclub singer.

Keaton began studying acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City. She initially studied acting under the Sanford Meisner technique, an ensemble acting technique made popular in the 1920s by Meisner, a New York acting director. She has described her acting technique as, " only as good as the person you're acting with ... As opposed to going it on my own and forging my path to create a wonderful performance without the help of anyone. I always need the help of everyone!"

In 1968 Keaton became an understudy on the original Broadway production of Hair. She gained some notoriety for her refusal to disrobe in the portions of the musical when the entire cast performed nude, even though nudity in the production was optional for actors (those who performed nude received a $50 bonus).

Career

1970s

After being nominated for a Tony Award for Play It Again, Sam, Keaton made her film debut in 1970's Lovers and Other Strangers
. She followed with guest roles on the television series Love, American Style and Night Gallery. Between films, Keaton appeared in a series of deodorant commercials.

Keaton's breakthrough role came two years later. In 1971 she was cast as Kay Adams, the girlfriend of Michael Corleone (played by Al Pacino) in Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 blockbuster The Godfather
. Coppola noted that he first noticed Keaton in Lovers and Other Strangers, and cast her because of her reputation for eccentricity that he wanted her to bring to the role. Keaton's performance in the film was loosely based on her real life experience of making the film, both of which she has described as being "the woman in a world of men." Keaton's other notable films of the late 1970s included many collaborations with Woody Allen. At the time she was also romantically involved with him, and played many eccentric characters in several of his comic and dramatic films including Sleeper, Love and Death
, Interiors
, Manhattan
, and a film version of Play It Again, Sam. In a 1977 cover story, Time dubbed her "the funniest woman now working in films." The two starred as a frequently on-again, off-again couple living in New York City. The film was both a major financial and critical success, and won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Keaton's performance also won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her acting was later summed up by CNN as "awkward, self-deprecating, speaking in endearing little whirlwinds of semi-logic", and by Allen as a "nervous breakdown in slow motion."

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Actors - Diane Keaton

Early life and education

Career

1970s

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