Diane Keaton: the Oscar-winning star of Annie Hall

“Too tall and too ‘kooky’” – that was one casting director’s verdict on Diane Keaton in the late 1960s, said The Guardian. But when the actress, who has died aged 79, auditioned for the original stage production of the comedy “Play It Again, Sam”, its writer, Woody Allen, was transfixed. Keaton was, he recalled, “adorable, funny, totally original in style, real, fresh … One talks about a personality that lights up a room, she lit up a boulevard.”

A few years later, he cast her in the film version – in the same year as she proved her dramatic skills with her “heartbreaking” performance as Kay, the wife of Al Pacino’s character Michael in “The Godfather”, a role she reprised in its sequels. But it was Allen’s “Annie Hall”, in 1977, that turned her into one of the biggest stars of her era.

By then, she and Allen were ex-lovers – and he had, she said, based the role on her. (Her real surname was Hall; her nickname was Annie.) Her performance won her an Oscar, and helped establish the Diane Keaton persona, said The New York Times. This rested partly on her nervous, jittery delivery (“La-di-da, la-di-da, la-la,” is her famous line in the film), but also on her “unmistakable aesthetic” – quirky takes on “traditionally male looks”, including ties, button-down shirts, waistcoats and trilby hats.

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Famously self-deprecating, she downplayed her role in creating her “signature look”, but even if she had been inspired by the “Soho chic” she saw on New York’s streets, it was Keaton who devised the wardrobe, and who made the clothes such a key part of the character.

Conveying ‘Keaton-ness’

A versatile actress, she could disappear into roles (such as in Warren Beatty’s 1981 film “Reds”, for which she was nominated for an Oscar), but her ability to convey “Keaton-ness” was a skill in itself.

Diane Hall was born in Los Angeles in 1946, where her father was a civil engineer, and her mother an amateur photographer. As a child, her female role models included Katharine Hepburn, to whom she would later be likened owing to her strength and intelligence, as well as her way with trousers. At 19, she moved to New York, where she won a role in “Hair” (she took her mother’s maiden name, as Hall was already taken). She made her film debut in 1970; “Annie Hall” was the fourth of the eight films she made with Allen – a lifelong friend whom she publicly defended when he was accused of abusing his adopted daughter.

Beyond acting

She remained in demand in the 1980s and 1990s, with notable roles in films including “Father of the Bride” and “Baby Boom”. In 2004, she was nominated for another Oscar, for “Something’s Gotta Give”, in which she played a buttoned-up writer who is pursued by both a dishy young doctor (Keanu Reeves) and an ageing roué (Jack Nicholson).

She herself never married, but she had long-term relationships with two of her co-stars – Pacino and Beatty. She adopted two children, and took time out to raise them, and also to look after her younger brother, Randy, who suffered from mental illness. With interests well beyond acting, she directed an episode of “Twin Peaks”, wrote books about art and architecture, published her photographs, and made a documentary examining beliefs about the afterlife, called “Heaven”.