Diane Keaton, the Oscar-winning actor whose singular mix of warmth, wit, and quirk helped redefine screen womanhood across six decades of American cinema, has died at 79. Her daughter, Dexter Keaton White, confirmed the news Saturday to NBC News, asking for privacy.

Keaton’s career spanned more than fifty years and countless reinventions—from the wide-eyed ingénue of The Godfather to the effortlessly neurotic heroine of Annie Hall, from nurturing mother in Father of the Bride to late‑life romantic in Something’s Gotta Give. She made vulnerability fashionable, intellect sexy, and eccentricity endearing.

A Natural Original

Born in Los Angeles on January 5, 1946, Diane Hall (she later adopted her mother’s maiden name, Keaton) grew up idolizing Katharine Hepburn and the theater. She studied drama at Santa Ana College before leaving for New York City, where she joined the Neighborhood Playhouse and made her Broadway debut in Woody Allen’s Play It Again, Sam in 1968.

That play became the springboard for a lasting partnership with Allen—and a first film credit when he adapted it for the screen in 1972. The same year, she landed the role of Kay Adams in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, instantly associating her with one of cinema’s most enduring sagas.

As Kay—the soft‑spoken moral conscience amid the Corleones’ corruption—Keaton embodied the audience’s own disbelief. Her quiet anguish in The Godfather Part II (1974) became one of the sequel’s defining emotional beats.

Annie Hall and the Birth of a New Archetype

Keaton’s cultural breakthrough came three years later with Allen’s Annie Hall (1977), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her portrayal of the idiosyncratic, free‑spirited Annie—forever saying “la‑di‑da” as she drifted through love and existential confusion—helped shift romantic comedy away from idealized glamour toward emotional realism.

She was, as critic Pauline Kael put it, “the most sophisticated goofball the movies ever gave us.” Keaton’s vintage vests, ties, and slouchy trousers—pieces from her own closet—launched a fashion revolution that mirrored her performance: androgynous, self‑assured, and joyfully odd.

An Actress of Many Lives

Though Annie Hall cemented her as a muse for urban neuroticism, Keaton resisted typecasting. She earned Oscar nominations for her political idealist in Warren Beatty’s Reds (1981), her caregiver in Marvin’s Room (1996), and her late‑life novelist in Nancy Meyers’ Something’s Gotta Give (2003).

Between those, she lent heart and humor to Father of the Bride (1991) and its sequel, sparred hilariously with Goldie Hawn and Bette Midler in The First Wives Club (1996), and, decades later, headlined the ensemble comedy Book Club (2018) alongside Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen.

Each performance showcased her distinct rhythm—hesitant yet confident, ironic yet sincere. Even when scripts faltered, Keaton’s presence elevated them.

Behind the Camera

Keaton was also a director and producer. Her directorial debut, Heaven (1987), was an experimental documentary exploring metaphysical questions; she later helmed the acclaimed TV movie Wildflower (1991), introducing a teenage Reese Witherspoon to audiences.

She directed an episode of Twin Peaks (also 1991) and the 2000 family dramedy Hanging Up, which she co‑starred in with Meg Ryan and Lisa Kudrow. Her visual curiosity extended beyond film—Keaton was a passionate photographer, a preservationist of historic California architecture, and the author of several memoirs and art books, including Then Again and Brother & Sister.

Love, Family, and Solitude

Famously private, Keaton never married, though her romances with Allen, Beatty, and Al Pacino kept her in headlines during the 1970s. In later years she spoke candidly—and humorously—about the freedom that choice afforded her.

“I don’t think it would have been a good idea for me to have married, and I’m really glad I didn’t,” she told People in 2019. “I’m sure they’re happy about it too.”

In her 50s, she adopted two children, Dexter and Duke, whom she often described as “the great surprise of my life.”

Tributes From Her Peers

News of Keaton’s passing prompted an immediate flood of tributes from co‑stars, directors, and admirers.

“Brilliant, beautiful, extraordinary,” wrote Bette Midler, her First Wives Club collaborator. “She was hilarious, a complete original, and completely without guile.”

Goldie Hawn remembered shared mornings of “coffee in the makeup trailer, laughing and joking right through to the very last day of filming. We agreed to grow old together,” Hawn wrote. “Well, we never got to live together, but we did grow older together.”

Mary Steenburgen, who worked with Keaton on Book Club, called her “magic… a wonder, and my friend.”

Jane Fonda hailed her as “a spark of life and light… constantly giggling at her own foibles, being limitlessly creative.”

Candice Bergen described her as “tremendously gifted and uniquely talented in so many disciplines yet also modest and wonderfully eccentric.”

Meryl Streep, who shared the screen with Keaton in Manhattan and Marvin’s Room, called her “our American treasure — indelible, singular girl and brilliant artist.”

On social media, younger performers echoed those sentiments. Viola Davis wrote, “You defined womanhood. The pathos, humor, levity—your ever‑present youthfulness and vulnerability made it impossible to imagine anyone else in your roles.”

Ben Stiller called her “one of the greatest film actors ever.”

A Lasting Cultural Footprint

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences issued a statement praising Keaton for embodying “the contradictions of being human: funny and fragile, bright and bruised, always achingly honest.”

Indeed, Keaton’s artistry was inseparable from authenticity. Her characters could be dizzy or dignified, self‑absorbed or self‑aware, but they were always recognizably human.

Film critic Leonard Maltin once noted, “She made neuroticism chic—and sincerity safe again.”

Her fashion sense—men’s trousers, vests, oversized hats—became shorthand for individuality. On red carpets, she never surrendered her signature bowler hats and gloves, turning eccentricity into elegance.

An Enduring Inspiration

Keaton’s influence extended far beyond her filmography. She opened doors for actresses seeking complex, imperfect roles and inspired generations to embrace quirks as strengths.

“You don’t have to fit into Hollywood’s box,” she told an audience at a 2017 AFI tribute. “I never did—and look how well that turned out.”

Her advice encapsulated her legacy: confidence born not of conformity but of curiosity.

Remembering Diane Keaton

To measure Diane Keaton’s career by awards is to undersell her impact. She was a touchstone for filmmakers, a muse for audiences, and a mirror for anyone who’s ever stumbled through love or self‑doubt.

She leaves behind her children, Dexter and Duke; countless collaborators; and a cinematic gallery of women who were as messy, funny, and sincere as life itself.

As Meryl Streep wrote in her tribute, “Her smile and her style and antic spirit will live on in film and in our hearts forever.”

Or, as Annie Hall herself might have said: La‑di‑da.