Mourning the Loss of Diane Keaton: ‘Annie Hall’ Star and Fashion Legend Passes Away at 79

Diane Keaton, the renowned actress whose career spanned seven decades and included roles in The Godfather, Reds, The First Wives Club, and Annie Hall — the latter of which earned her an Oscar in 1979 for Best Actress In A Leading Role — had died, People reports. She was 79 years old.

Keaton, née Diane Hall, was born in Los Angeles in January of 1946, but first caught public attention when she appeared in the original Broadway production of Hair in 1968. She next appeared on-stage in 1969’s Play It Again, Sam, a play written by and starring an up-and-coming young playwright named Woody Allen, which earned her a Tony Award nomination in 1970. She took her talents from Broadway to the small screen for a short time before scoring a role that permanently established her as a force on the silver screen, that of Kay Adams in The Godfather. She played the love interest of Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone in a film that was both a critical and commercial smash, earning three Oscars (among 11 total nominations), spawning two sequels, and earning recognition as one of the greatest works in all of cinema.

With this massive success under her belt, she renewed her partnership with Allen as his career transitioned from the Great White Way to Hollywood. She served as his muse and starred in films like Play It Again, Sam (1972), Sleeper (1973), Love and Death (1975) and Annie Hall (1977). All of these pictures were successful in their own right, but Annie Hall, in particular, captured the cultural zeitgeist in a massive fashion, along the way to becoming one of the most successful and well-regarded comedies of all-time, due in large part to Keaton’s work. She played the titular character, a kooky, pot-smoking free spirit who captures the heart and mind of Allen’s Alvy Singer (before dumping him as she rightly recognized that she could do much, much better). Keaton’s particular and singular sense of style turned her into an unlikely fashion icon, and the way that she embodied the character of Annie Hall became the standard bearer for a certain form of ’70s era feminism. You know the phrase “women want to be her, men want to be with her”? That was Diane Keaton in 1977. She appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, starred in Looking For Mr. Goodbar, and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Actress in the spring of 1978.

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