The veteran actress Diane Keaton, who has nearly 60 years of acting experience, is a master of many aspects of the silver screen.
Off camera, though, the Hollywood “it girl” was a “master at hiding,” keeping dark secrets from her younger self that she now acknowledges as “creepy.”
The LA-born Diane Keaton, 77, is one of Hollywood’s most accomplished leading ladies and an icon with a nearly six-decade-long career.
She debuted on stage in 1968 as an understudy for a main role in the counterculture musical Hair, where Woody Allen first saw her. He later cast her as his love interest in the Broadway production of Play it Again, Sam (1969).
The then 23-year-old received her first and only Tony nomination for the role of Linda Christie, which she later repeated in the 1972 film adaption of the same name.
Although they collaborated on multiple films over the following two decades, her real-life relationship with Woody Allen only lasted a few years, mirroring the fleeting stage romance her character enjoyed with Allen.
The award-winning actor made a few unremarkable cameos in movies, TV shows, and advertisements before landing her breakout part in The Godfather.
In the Oscar-winning movie with unparalleled commercial and critical success, Keaton played the girlfriend and ultimately the wife of Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), significantly increasing her fame as an actor.
She returned to The Godfather Part II in 1974, playing the estranged wife of the criminal empire’s boss opposite Al Pacino, with whom she had an on-and-off romance.
I was crazy for him. Before she and Pacino started dating, Keaton confessed to having a crush on the actor. “Charming, hilarious, and a nonstop talker,” Keaton told People. He had a part of himself that resembled a lost orphan or a crazy idiot genius. And oh, lovely!”
She and Allen reunited in Annie Hall (1977), bringing her an Academy Award and a Golden Globe.
Warren Beatty, Keaton’s co-star, and director in several successful films like Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Manhattan, and 1981’s Reds, was the subject of a passionate love affair between the two. Warren made his film debut in 1961’s Splendor in the Grass. Come on! He was truly, to die for. The dream. Bonnie and Clyde, perhaps? Come on,” she exclaimed in a Variety interview.In addition to being a brilliant movie star and stunningly attractive, seductive, sexy, alluring, and enigmatic, he was also an incredible producer and director. Or, to be more precise, he still is. This is all just so unusual.
As she grew older, the Baby Boom actress expanded her body of work. She then starred alongside Steve Martin as the mother in Father of the Bride in 1991, had her first appearance with Allen in Manhattan Murder Mystery since Annie Hall, and as the divorced wife of the mafia boss in The Godfather Part III in 2000.
She received an Academy Award nomination for her role in the comedy. Something’s Gotta Give in 2003. It was her first major box office success since 1996’s First Wives Club starred Bette Midler and Goldie Hawn.
Her co-stars gushed about her performances since she is a consummate professional. In the movie, Something’s Gotta Give, Keaton and Jack Nicholson co-starred. Jack Nicholson said of Keaton, “She’s nothing if not fascinating, and working with her, she’s very unpredictable, which I like.” She is highly organized in all of this. She approaches a screenplay somewhat like a play in that, unlike other performers I’ve seen, she memorizes the full script before filming begins.
Keaton was particularly fond of Keanu Reeves, her much younger co-star, in contrast to her character in the movie, who falls in love with her daughter’s much older boyfriend (Nicholson).
Keaton told the Sydney Morning Herald that her on-screen kisses with Reeves—20 years her junior—were “quite embarrassing ” for Keanu, too. It is related to the passage of time. While kissing him, you automatically think, “Uh, probably not! ” “And Keanu was saying, ‘Not!’,” the endearing actor said. He tried to be courteous. He is stunningly gorgeous, though. A guilty pleasure, that. Very much a guilty pleasure.
Either actor has not substantiated rumors of their off-screen romance.
Keaton is a champion of natural aging and is proud of her silvery mane and appearance as a woman in her late 70s. She leads with a great deal of humility.
“I tell myself that my body is mine to do with as I like. Exactly why not? I’m still wearing wide-belted plaid coats, horn-rimmed glasses, and turtlenecks in the summer; I may be a caricature of myself. Then what? She added in a Daily Beast interview that nobody saves for me is concerned. “I don’t see anything wrong with Botox, fillers, or facelifts. Just the hidden scars from combat are removed. I kind of plan to wear mine.
Even though she is a well-respected actor, playwright, director, and singer in Hollywood, she is not exempt from unwarranted criticism from the general public.
After she attended the Golden Globes in 2014, an online user targeted her with the following Tweet: “Wow. Diane Keaton gained weight.Another critic recently stated, “Well, Diane Keaton isn’t nice, she’s ugly inside and out!” without apparent cause.
It’s important to realize that the stunning actress with an incredibly slender frame is recovering from her destructive relationship with food.
During an appearance on the Dr. Oz Show, Keaton stated, “It was awful. Of course, that was the lowest period in my life. I was an obese individual who had managed to deceive myself or herself into believing that I wasn’t fat.”
“In light of this, after you’ve been living a lie for four years…” She said, “All I did was feed my hunger, so I am an addict,” as she described her struggle with bulimia. “It is real. I’m an addict recovering, and I always will be. I tend to become addicted.”
She was teased into taking the lead in Hair in exchange for losing 10 pounds, which immediately set off her insecurities. After Act 1, the players who agreed to disrobe would get an additional $50 from the production. Keaton objected.
She ate a lot to cope with the stress. She then let all she had eaten out of her stomach by throwing up.
She consumed 20,000 calories per supper, which included “a bucket of fried chicken, several orders of fries with blue cheese and ketchup, a couple of TV dinners, a quart of soda, pounds of candy, a whole cake, and three banana cream pies.”
She visited a therapist five times per week for a year after realizing she had a problem treating her binge eating disorder.
About her adopted children, Keaton said, “Now it’s (addiction) work oriented or trying to raise my children as best I can, even though they’re…not children anymore.”
At the 2017 American Film Awards dinner, where Keaton received a Lifetime Achievement Award, Woody Allen made fun of his multi-talented buddy by joking about the eating disorder she concealed while they were together.
Allen jokingly said, “I didn’t know a lot of stuff until I read her novels. “I had no idea she was bulimic… I was going to take her to these fancy restaurants. $400 for a meal. I could have taken her to Pizza Hut if I had known she was throwing them up.
Even though the star-studded audience laughed, Keaton’s bulimia was a very serious issue to her.
Keaton insisted that she didn’t reduce her weight to satisfy the producers of Hair, saying instead that she kept the weight off and “became a master at hiding.” How can you ensure no one finds out if you hide evidence? You lead a pretty peculiar existence. You are acting falsely.
“People were nice enough, but I felt like an outsider,” she continues. “I had a problem, and it was spooky. You lose a lot of time to bulimia each day.
The star of rom-com royalty, who has never been married, loves being a mother. Duke Keaton, 23, and Dexter Keaton White, 27, are Keaton’s children, both of whom she adopted while in her fifties.
“I didn’t believe I would ever be ready to be a mother. Being a mother wasn’t a desire I couldn’t resist; I had been considering it for a long time. I dove right in,” she remarked.
She is remarkable, and we value her openness in discussing her eating condition. We wish Keaton the best of luck as she continues her quest because the mirror can be our worst critic.
What are your favorite movies starring Diane Keaton?
