Lifestyle
Hollywood’s quirky leading lady, Diane Keaton, dies aged 79
Actress Diane Keaton poses at the 45th AFI Life Achievement Award Tribute to Keaton at the Dolby Theatre on Thursday, June 8, 2017, in Los Angeles.
Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
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Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
Diane Keaton, who remained one of Hollywood’s quirkiest and most beloved actors decades after her Academy Award-winning performance in the movie Annie Hall, has died aged 79.
Her film producer confirmed her death to NPR Saturday.
When I met Keaton for an interview in 2014, she was sporting her trademark look: a bowler hat, tinted glasses and oversized clothes.
“Clothing that actually hides the body,” she half-joked. “There’s a lot to hide in my case, so I’m the only remaining person on Earth with this particular look.”
Keaton was really something of a fashionista, inspiring generations of women with her unconventional lifestyle. Onscreen, she was known for playing endearing, unique and sometimes eccentric characters.
In one of her memoirs, Keaton wrote about aging and love in Hollywood and becoming a parent late in life. She was also upfront about some of her insecurities; she fretted about aging, her hair thinning, her eyes drooping. But Keaton told me that later in life, she had finally come to accept that all flaws are beautiful.
“I feel that wrong can be right. It can be right in a lot of ways,” she said. “So all those things that you’re disappointed with in yourself can work for you.”
FILE – Oscar winners Charles H. Joffe, winner of best picture for “Annie Hall,” left, and Diane Keaton, winner of best actress for “Annie Hall,” poses with presenter Jack Nicholson, and producer Jack Rollins at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles on April 3, 1978.
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She was born Diane Hall in Los Angeles in 1946, the daughter of real estate broker and civil engineer Jack Hall. Her mother Dorothy was once crowned Mrs. Los Angeles.
Keaton said her mom cheered her on as she pursued her dreams of becoming a singer and performer in New York. After studying at the Neighborhood Playhouse in the 1960’s, Keaton ended up an understudy in the original Broadway production of the rock musical Hair.
“It was wild. It was unexpected,” she said. “But I could see that I really wasn’t a hippie. I knew that I wasn’t a hippie in Hair.”
Keaton famously refused to go onstage nude for the final scene of Hair.
Then, along came Woody Allen, with whom she had a romantic relationship. Allen cast her in Play It Again, Sam, his play, then his movie. Also his film comedies Sleeper, Love and Death, Manhattan, and, of course, Annie Hall.
Keaton’s kooky, quirky role as Annie Hall and her “lah-de-dah” charm won her a best actress Oscar in 1978. She thanked Woody Allen in her acceptance speech and later, for her entire career. She stood by him throughout the controversy over allegations that Allen once molested his daughter, which the director denies.
“That’s never going to change,” Keaton said of her support for Allen. “He’s my very, very good friend.”
In Annie Hall, Keaton showed off her comedy and singing chops. But she also had dramatic film roles, most famously in The Godfather trilogy. Her character marries into the Corleone mafia family.
Her Godfather costar, Al Pacino, was one of her boyfriends in real life. Another of her real life loves, Warren Beatty, directed her in his 1981 film Reds.
FILE – Filmmaker Woody Allen, left, greets actress Diane Keaton onstage to present her with the 45th AFI Life Achievement Award on June 8, 2017, in Los Angeles.
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In the historical drama about journalist John Reed, Keaton played his love interest, activist Louise Bryant.
“I loved her position in life,” Keaton said of her character, which she said played second fiddle to Reed (played by Beatty.) “And she wanted to be great. She wanted greatness in her. And fighting for herself, and failing and failing. I loved her for that. I loved her for her flaws. She was a difficult person who wasn’t very likable, yet I loved her.”
Jack Nicholson was also in Reds. He teamed up with Keaton again in 2003 for the comedy Something’s Gotta Give. In that movie, Keaton also played opposite Keanu Reeves.
Diane Keaton never married, though in films, she was one of the very few older American actresses who still got leading romantic roles. That was something actress Carol Kane, Keaton’s long-term friend, raved about at the time.
“She’s playing the love interest a lot,” Kane said. “You know, kind of passionately kissing and swooping into the bedroom…at an age when most people just sort of say, ‘OK, well, that part is over.’ I mean, she just gets more and more beautiful because she’s more and more herself.”
Diane Keaton attends the premiere of “Book Club: The Next Chapter” at AMC Lincoln Square on Monday, May 8, 2023, in New York.
Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
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Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
For years, Keaton acted in such films as Looking For Mr. Goodbar, The First Wives Club and Baby Boom. She directed the documentary Heaven in 1987. She also wrote books about her life, about architecture, photography and beauty; she collected photos of beautiful men, she renovated beautiful houses, and as a single mother, raised two beautiful children. When she turned 50, she adopted her daughter, Dexter and five years later, her son Duke.
“It’s an unconventional life, it’s true,” she told me. “But I don’t really see it that way, because I just think everybody has a pretty– is there a life that doesn’t have a story that isn’t pretty astonishing? I’ve never come across anybody who hasn’t. I just worked my way into the life that I have because I had a goal and it was very simple: I wanted to be in the movies.”
Keaton told me she was a late bloomer. But her fans might say death came to her far too soon.
Once rivals on the tennis court, Martina Navratilova, left, and Chris Evert have become close friends in retirement. They are pictured above at the French Open in 1986.
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Trevor Jones/Getty Images Europe
Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova were the most successful women’s tennis champions of their generation. Both were 18-time Grand Slam tournament winners — and each other’s greatest rivals.
Evert, a Florida native, became a tennis star in her teens. Navratilova was born in communist Czechoslovakia, and emerged as a player after Evert was established. They first faced off during a match in Akron, Ohio, in 1973, when Evert was 18, and Navratilova was 16. Evert won, but Navratilova left an impression.
“I remember thinking to myself, holy cow, when this young girl gets into better shape, she is going to be a force to be reckoned with,” Evert says. “She had so much talent. Her hands were quick, she had a big first serve, she had a big forehand, and she just was so powerful.”
Two years later, on the day she lost a semifinals match to Evert at the U.S. Open, Navratilova defected to the U.S. In the years that followed, her tennis game improved. Though she and Evert had initially been friendly, the friendship cooled as their rivalry heated up.
“Playing Chris was difficult because how can you not like Chris? What’s not to admire?” Navratilova says. “She was like the epitome of cool.”
The new Netflix documentary Chris & Martina: The Final Set tells the story of how Evert and Navratilova re-established their friendship and how they both faced cancer in retirement. Evert was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2021; Navratilova was diagnosed with throat and breast cancer in 2022.
“I can’t get away from her,” Evert jokes. “We had a 15-year career, and then we got cancer at the same time. It really is freaky, but I always say: If I want someone to be in the trenches with me, it’s Martina because she has been so supportive and so understanding.”
Navratilova agrees: “We have such a level of trust that we know whatever we say to each other, it stays there. We give each other the best advice we know how to. And there is no ulterior motive, no playing games.”
At the time that this interview was taped, Evert and Navratilova were both in remission from cancer. But late last week, Evert disclosed she’d recently been diagnosed with a recurrence of ovarian cancer.
“We know whatever we say to each other, it stays there,” Martina Navratilova says of her friendship with Chris Evert.
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Interview highlights
On supporting each other through cancer
Evert: There are a lot of phone calls between us. … I don’t cook, but Martina would bake bread for me, and her wife Julia would cook, make some chicken soup. … I got a lot of food from Martina. She got a necklace from me.
Navratilova: I get jewelry from Chris, she gets food from me.
Evert: Martina’s and my relationship — because we’ve had one for 50 years — is not the type where we have to talk to each other every day to maintain the closeness. I always knew she was there. She always knew I was there if we needed to talk, and that was that.
On the weakness they experienced with cancer
Navratilova: Chris’ diagnosis and treatment was much more life-threatening than mine, percentage wise, but my treatment was more difficult physically. … I was in New York for seven weeks and I literally sat on a yoga mat, maybe half an hour of the seven weeks, and did some stretching. I couldn’t even do the down dog pose because I would have fallen down. I had absolutely zero strength left.
Evert: The chemo kicked my butt, let’s put it that way. … It left me very weak, very, very weak. After chemo I would have three or four days of intense nausea and I just would feel tingling in my body and it just wasn’t nice. I didn’t have the energy. To walk six blocks was a big deal for me. And it was foreign. You know, it felt like it wasn’t my body, for sure.
On watching the old footage of their matches together for the documentary
Navratilova: For me, it was fun watching with Chris, because we had different reactions to what happened on the court. But what impressed me is how well we played with those wooden rackets. Because you know what? Those rackets are not easy to play with. But you try to put yourself in there physically, what it was like, mentally, what it is like. And it’s like, “Oh, I should have gone down the line,” or, “I can’t believe I missed that shot.” Or “Chris, you had such a great pass.” It was amazing. So it was impressive. … I wish I could still have that six-pack, but anyhow.
Evert: I remember feeling genuinely happy for her. I remember it was her first Wimbledon. That’s always been her dream since she defected. Her family couldn’t be there to watch her. She was all alone. And I just was happy for it. And I knew that this was gonna be one of many for her to win.
On defecting to the U.S. in 1975 when she was 18 years old
Navratilova: I was thrilled to be in the States. I always loved American cars. And when you ordered a ham sandwich, you got, like, two inches of ham and two slices of bread. Whereas growing up, you had thick bread and one slice of ham. So I thought I was in heaven. And it was $2.30 for that sandwich. I still remember it. I couldn’t believe how much ham I was getting.
Lauren Krenzel and Nico Gonzalez Wisler produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.
Headlands Brewing launched its World Cup-themed beer Common Ground ahead of the first World Cup game in June.
Justin Gellerson for NPR
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Justin Gellerson for NPR
The British betting company William Hill predicts that soccer fans will throw back more than 5 million pints of beer in stadiums and fan zones during this year’s World Cup. And that number doesn’t even account for the millions of pints being poured in bars as fans tune in to the global soccer event.
But while international soccer crowds are focusing on goals and penalties, a trio of craft breweries from the tournament’s three host nations are using the tournament to brew something increasingly rare: cross-border solidarity.
A shared recipe with local spin
The collaboration began months ago over a flurry of video chats and emails. The beermakers at Rey Árbol Brewing Co. in Mexico, Headlands Brewing in the United States, and Cabin Brewing Co. in Canada set out to design a single, unified recipe representing the brewing traditions of all three nations.
“It’s a Mexican lager,” said Alejandro Gomez, founder of Rey Árbol.
“That’s like a West Coast IPA,” said Ryan Frank, chief operating officer and brewmaster for Headlands.
“And up in Canada, most of our beers are hop driven,” said Haydon Dewes, co-founder of Cabin. “So we thought, let’s go for a dry-hopped Mexican lager.”
While all three breweries share the exact same recipe, each is giving the final product a distinct local spin, including unique, regionally designed labels. A four-pack of the U.S version costs $15.99. Frank said Headlands has produced about 130 cases of the limited-run brew.
Headlands Brewing COO and brewmaster Ryan Frank drinks a Common Ground beer in Berkeley, Calif., on June 11.
Justin Gellerson for NPR
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Justin Gellerson for NPR
For the brewers, however, the project is less about marketing and more about connection: They named the multinational beer “Common Ground.”
“When I go to California or Canada, they will treat me like family,” Gomez said.
“It makes the world feel so much smaller,” said Dewes.
“It’s about building bridges and knowing what’s important in life,” said Frank. “And for us, that’s soccer and beer.”
Geopolitical friction in the taproom
The official rhetoric surrounding World Cup 2026 mirrors the brewers’ optimism, with promotional materials promising a tournament where billions are “united as individuals, united as billions.”
Yet this idealistic messaging stands in sharp contrast to a prickly geopolitical reality. Tensions between the U.S., Mexico and Canada have mounted over trade tariffs and auto manufacturing standards as the three nations renegotiate long-standing trade agreements.
The independent brewers behind Common Ground are feeling that friction firsthand through the rising costs of aluminum cans and raw ingredients.
“There are 15% tariffs slapped on any European-grown hops, which are really critical to some of our core brands,” Frank said.
Headlands Brewing brewmaster Ryan Frank and CEO Austin Sharp share a Common Ground beer in Berkeley, Calif., ahead of the first World Cup game on June 11.
Justin Gellerson for NPR
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Justin Gellerson for NPR
The political discord hasn’t just been confined to trade boards.
When signing an executive order to establish a White House Task Force for the World Cup in March 2025, President Trump suggested that cross-border hostilities might actually benefit the tournament. “Oh, I think it’s gonna make it more exciting,” the president said.
A bittersweet reminder
Tension on the soccer field is one thing; between nations, it’s another.
“It’s true that when it comes to the actual soccer, we’ve developed a very healthy, vibrant rivalry between the three countries,” said Andrés Martinez, the author of The Great Game: A Tale of Two Footballs and America’s Quest to Conquer Global Sport and co-director of Arizona State University’s Great Game Lab, which studies the intersection of sports, media and geopolitics. “But we’re also linked together in this very symbiotic relationship.”
Martinez said that when the U.S., Canada and Mexico initially launched their collaborative bid to host the World Cup back in 2017, the political climate was warmer.
“It was meant to showcase these tight bonds that had developed between the three countries,” Martinez said.
The makers of Common Ground used a shared recipe, but all created their own distinct packaging for the beer: Canada’s Cabin Brewing Co.; Mexico’s Rey Árbol Brewing Co.; the United States’ Headlands Brewing.
Cabin Brewing Company, Rey Árbol Brewing Company, Headlands Brewing
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Cabin Brewing Company, Rey Árbol Brewing Company, Headlands Brewing
But relations have soured since then, making cross-border business collaborations like Common Ground an anomaly rather than the norm for this tournament.
“To see craft beers across the three countries coming together like this, it’s a bittersweet reminder of what we were hoping to see a lot more of,” Martinez said.
Finding the real common ground
If trade wars and political posturing are looming large in Washington, D.C., Ottawa and Mexico City, they feel a world away at Headlands Brewing’s busy North Berkeley location.
As fans gathered to watch a crucial match between Mexico and South Africa at the start of the tournament, the sunny patio erupted into cheers and shrieks of “Goal!” when Mexico found the back of the net.
Headlands Brewing hosts a screening of the first World Cup game on June 11 in Berkeley, Calif.
Justin Gellerson for NPR
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Justin Gellerson for NPR
Hovering over a pint of the collaborative brew, soccer fan Roberto Mandujano reflected on the cross-border experiment.
“Three different ways, three different taste buds come together to make something cool,” he said.
When asked about the underlying political tensions between the host nations, Mandujano shrugged off the discord.
“We live in a world where everyone wants to make everything political,” Mandujano said. “But I think we’re all here for soccer. So I guess that’s the common ground.”
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