Diane Keaton reflects on her new memoir, Then Again, excerpted exclusively in the November issue of Vogue. By Megan O'Grady.
“When you reach 60, people come to you and ask, why not a memoir?” says Academy Award–winning actress Diane Keaton, 65, on the phone from Los Angeles, where she lives with her daughter, Dexter, 15, and her son, Duke, 10. “But I’m not a writer! It wasn’t until after my mother died that I wanted to do it.” Drawing from her mother’s journals—85 of them, kept over the course of her life—as well as love letters (from the likes of Al Pacino, Warren Beatty, and Woody Allen, who remains a close friend), Keaton took a collage approach to writing the book, selections from which appear in _Vogue’_s November issue.
“I’m a hoarder,” she says, laughing. “For me, documentation has always been key, and I’ve kept everything from my past. And so it really was about grabbing bits and pieces here and there, adages and quotes, other people’s voices, and shaping my thoughts.”
The result—as warm, funny, and self-deprecating as Keaton’s onscreen persona—traces a profound dramatic arc: that of a young woman coming into her own as an artist, and of a daughter becoming a mother. “As an actress, I’m drawn to emotion and expressing the human condition in all its forms, and I’m fortunate to have thoughts and feelings at my fingertips. Early in the mornings I would drive Dexter to swim practice, and I would sit in the car with my computer and coffee as the sun rose, and it was just like old trips with my family, taking me to different places I’d never been.”
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In this excerpt from Then Again, Diane Keaton reflects on the girl she was and the actress she became.
One morning I woke up to a group of strangers walking around our house examining every room. Mom hadn’t bothered to tell me, my brother, Randy, or my sisters, Robin and Dorrie, that she had entered the Mrs. America contest at our local level. Later she told us kids it was a pageant devoted to finding the ideal homemaker, possessing such skills as table-setting, floral arranging, and cooking, as well as managing the family budget and excelling in personal grooming. All we could think was Wow.
I was nine, which made me old enough to sit in the audience of the movie theater on Figueroa Street when Dorothy Deanne Keaton Hall was crowned Mrs. Highland Park. Suddenly my own mother was thrust high above me onto a vast stage in front of a huge red velvet curtain. As she stood there, the newly crowned greatest homemaker of Highland Park, California, the drapery opened to reveal an RCA Victor “Shelby” television, a set of Samsonite luggage, a fashion wardrobe from Ivers Department Store, and six cobalt-blue flasks filled with Evening in Paris perfume. For a moment I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. Why was Mom standing in the spotlight like she was some sort of movie star? This was terribly exciting yet extremely unpleasant at the same time. Something had happened, a kind of betrayal. Mom had abandoned me, but even worse, I secretly wished it had been me on that stage, not her.
Six months later she was crowned again, this time as Mrs. Los Angeles by Art Linkletter at the Ambassador Hotel. Randy and I watched on our new RCA Victor “Shelby” television. My mother’s new duties included making appearances all over Los Angeles County. She wasn’t home much, and when she was, she was busy baking the same German chocolate cake with walnuts over and over, in the hope that it would help her become Mrs. California. Dad got sick of the whole ordeal and made it known. When she lost the coveted title, she appeared to accept her failure as easily as she resumed her normal household duties, but things were different, at least for me.
Sometimes I wonder now how our lives might have changed if Mother had been chosen Mrs. America. What would have happened to my dreams of being in the spotlight if hers had been realized? Another mother took her opportunity away, but I didn’t care; I was glad I didn’t have to share her with a larger world.
In 1957, we moved into a beige board-and-batten tract home surrounded by acres of orange groves in Santa Ana. The utopia Southern California held out to those of us who grew up in the fifties was irresistible. We believed happiness would come from owning a Buick station wagon, a speedboat, and a Doughboy swimming pool.
The move to Santa Ana was my prelude to adolescence. Not only was I going to be a young woman, Dad started telling me how pretty I’d be and how some boy would love me all up, and wouldn’t that be fun? I didn’t want any boy loving me, not for a second. I began to formulate how much better it would be if a lot of people loved me instead of one hard-to-understand boy. This barely realized notion unwittingly helped drive me toward acting. Many of Dad’s messages became justifications for seeking an audience in lieu of intimacy. Intimacy, like drinking and smoking, was something you had to watch out for. Intimacy meant only one person loved you, not thousands, not millions. It made me think of Mom on that stage and Dad’s unhappiness about having to share her with others.
There was no discussion with my parents on the night I sang “Mata Hari” in our Santa Ana High School production of the musical Little Mary Sunshine. Under the direction of our drama teacher, Mr. Robert Leasing, the production was worthy of Broadway—at least I thought so. I was Nancy Twinkle, the second lead, who loves to flirt with men. In my big number, “Mata Hari,” I ran around the stage singing about the famous double agent “who would spy and get her data by doing this and that-a,” ending with a grand finale featuring me sliding down a rope into the orchestra pit. That was when I heard the explosion. It came from the audience. It was applause.
When Mom and Dad found me backstage, their faces were beaming. I’d never seen my dad so excited. I could tell he was surprised by his awkward daughter—the one who’d flunked algebra and smashed the new Ford station wagon. For one thrilling moment, I was his Seabiscuit, Audrey Hepburn, and Wonder Woman rolled into one.
I don’t remember getting on the plane that took me 3,000 miles away from home when I was nineteen. I don’t remember what I was wearing or what the flight was like. I don’t remember kissing my family goodbye. I remember the bus ride to the city. I remember the YWCA. It was on the West Side. I remember checking into a tiny room. I remember sitting on the stoop, watching people rush past. I was in the city of my dreams. New York was the opposite of dinky Santa Ana or even Los Angeles. It was Times Square, the Empire State Building, and the Statue of Liberty. It was millions of people gathered together to celebrate the ringing in of New Year’s Eve. It was the Broadhurst Theatre, where hits like Pal Joey and Auntie Mame played to packed houses. It was the movies.
New York was my destiny; I was going to study at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. I was going to be an actress. And I was ready. That’s when the doorman came over and told me not to sit in front of the Y. That’s all I remember: the city, the room, how ready I was, and “Don’t sit on the stoop.”
At the Neighborhood Playhouse, it was Sandy Meisner. He wore a camel-hair coat and smoked, and everyone said he was homosexual, even though he’d been married. He was mesmerizing and mean and the first grown-up I ever thought of as sexy.
Mr. Meisner felt that our job was to prepare for an “experiment that would take place onstage.” The goal was to become “a spontaneous responder,” which could be learned by practicing the Repetition Game. A partner—let’s say my friend Cricket Cohen—would make an observation. “Diane, you have brown hair.” I listened and repeated, “I have brown hair.” Cricket might then say, “Your brown hair is also straight and thin.” I would respond, “Yes, my hair is straight and thin.” She would embellish, adding, “Very thin.” I would reply, “You’re right, it is thin, very thin, but not curly like yours.” The implication being “You got a problem, bitch?” She would answer, “At least my hair is not too thin.” Meaning something to the effect of “Go back to Santa Ana, where you belong.” I took to the Repetition Game like a fish to water.
Sandy introduced us to the world of playing with our feelings, especially the embarrassing ones. I learned to use my suppressed anger to good effect. I could cry on a dime, explode, forgive, fall in love, fall out, all in a matter of moments. My weakness? I was “too general.” At the end of the second year, he cast me as Barbara Allen in Dark of the Moon. Several agents came to the show and seemed interested, but no one signed me up. Sandy Meisner sent me into the world of auditions with a nod, saying, “Someday you’re going to be a good actress.”
I started hanging out with other second-year students who were panicked about how to become working actors. It was the Summer of Love, and somehow I met my first famous man, Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary. He took me under his wing for a couple of days. I had no idea Peter was a political activist who marched with Martin Luther King. I felt awkward and uninformed around his crowd and left the party he’d invited me to early. He must have known I wasn’t ready for the big time, because I never heard from him again.
Luckily, Hal Baldridge from the Playhouse got me a job at the Woodstock Playhouse, where I appeared in two shows that summer. I needed to get an Actors’ Equity card, but apparently there was already a Diane Hall in good standing. I decided to use my sister Dorrie’s name for the part of Factory Worker in The Pajama Game. I became Cory Hall for the stellar role of Ensemble in Oh! What a Lovely War. Cory and Dorrie? That’s when it dawned on me I could keep it all in the family by using Mom’s maiden name: Keaton. Diane Keaton.
Dear Gang,
I had an audition last night for a rock musical called Hair. I go back tomorrow for the final elimination. I’ve got my fingers crossed. I really hope I get it. . . .
Dorrie and Robin, I’ve started listening to Tim Buckley and Mimi and Richard Fariña. Are you into them?
Love,
Diane
Hello, all you Halls,
We’re in our 2nd week of rehearsal. . . . Get ready, it’s a really weird show, to put it mildly. I have three verses of a solo in a song called “Black Boys.” I’m just glad I haven’t been fired yet! Acting doesn’t seem to be a concern to the director, Tom O’Horgan. We look like hippies; we sing like hippies; we’re the turned-on youth of today. . . .
Anyway, I love you all.
Diane
Hi, Everyone,
Well, I’m in a hit, we opened the 29th. No Woodstock this summer. A real job, and on Broadway. After the show tonight, Richard Avedon is photographing the whole cast for Vogue magazine. Now, is that astonishing or what? And big stars have come to see it, like Warren Beatty (remember my crush on him from Splendor in the Grass_) and Julie Christie, who is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and Liza Minnelli, and Terence Stamp, and Carol Channing. Apparently_ Hair is the in thing to see. . . .
Love,
Diane
Woody Allen and I met in the fall of 1968 at the Broadhurst Theatre while I was auditioning for Play It Again, Sam. He was funny but not intimidating. I got the part, or, as Woody teased me and I used to say, “I created the role of Linda Christie.”
In the show, my husband, Dick Christie, played by Tony Roberts, and I take Allan Felix, played by Woody, under our wing after he is dumped by his wife. Unbeknownst to us, he is also getting help from Humphrey Bogart, who appears to him during failed dating attempts with gorgeous women.
During rehearsal, I fell for Allan as scripted but for Woody as well. How could I not? I was in love with him before I knew him. He was Woody Allen. Our entire family used to gather around the TV set and watch him on Johnny Carson. He was so hip, with his thick glasses and cool suits.
But it was his manner that got me, his way of gesturing, his hands, his coughing and looking down in a self-deprecating way while he told jokes like “I couldn’t get a date for New Year’s Eve so I went home and I jumped naked into a vat of Roosevelt dimes.” He was even better-looking in real life. He had a great body, and he was physically very graceful.
As in the play, we became friends. I was a good audience. I laughed in between the jokes. I think he liked that, even though he would always remind me I wouldn’t know a joke if it hit me in the face. He took me to see Ingmar Bergman’s Persona and Luis Buñuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. On Madison Avenue we looked in the windows of Serge Sabarsky’s gallery of German Expressionist paintings. We walked to the Museum of Modern Art and saw the Diane Arbus exhibition curated by John Szarkowski. Woody got used to me. He couldn’t help himself; he loved neurotic girls.
From Dorothy Hall’s journal, February 1969
Jack and I flew all the way to New York City for the opening night of Play It Again, Sam. Jack Benny—Ed Sullivan—Walter Kerr—George Plimpton—Angela Lansbury—and other stars attended. We met Woody Allen afterwards. Oh my goodness. He was so shy and quiet, not like I expected at all. The play was very funny. Diane looked beautiful on-stage—she wore a fall, which made her hair look really thick. She’s on a thing these days, always chewing a big mouthful of Dubble Bubble gum or sucking candy—or eating. I wish I knew how she stays so thin.
Everyone was very kind to us. At Sardi’s we sat at a table for ten with champagne and cheesecake. We were told that Woody Allen’s new leading lady was his new heart interest too. This gave us a real kick.
From Dorothy Hall’s journal, September 1969
Diane was on Merv Griffin tonight. She was Diane. Her walk, her laugh, her jumble of words. When she sat between Bob Hope and Merv, they teased her about dating. Bob Hope said, “All right, Diane, who is he?” She couldn’t get her words out. She was nervous and giggly, but with Bob Hope next to her everything she said was unaccountably funny. He actually made a comedienne out of Diane. I can’t exactly explain. Both Merv and Bob played off her all evening. I took pictures. Dad taped the whole thing.
After Play It Again, Sam closed, I couldn’t get a job. It seemed like every audition was lost to either Blythe Danner or Jill Clayburgh. A year came and went without work. When I landed a commercial for Hour After Hour deodorant, in which I wore a tracksuit and bit my husband’s ear, saying, “Hour After Hour . . . it won’t walk out before the day is over,” I hit bottom. I kept fixating over something Lee Ann Fahey, another aspiring actress, said about “making it” before you’re 25. I was 25. What was I going to do?
Woody suggested I see an analyst named Felicia Lydia Landau. We couldn’t have been a more unlikely pair—me, the firstborn daughter of a sunny-looking family from Southern California; she, a Jew from Poland who escaped on the eve of Hitler’s invasion. But I still longed for a mother’s guidance and found an ideal substitute in Landau. She wasn’t the charmed listener Mom was. We didn’t hang at the kitchen counter and share laughs. But Landau knew the world was populated with others, not just Diane Hall of Orange County. She was a great rep for all the people in my life. Her goal was to help me come to terms with my grandiose expectations.
In 1972 I got my big break—or so I thought—with the movie of Play It Again, Sam. Susan Anspach, who starred opposite Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces, joined the cast. I was fascinated by her mysterious manner, until the day she came up to me and told me to stop smiling so much. It would create more laugh lines.
But of course it wasn’t until I got the part of Kay Corleone in The Godfather that things really began to change. Here’s what I can’t forget about that first Godfather: Dick Smith, the Academy Award–winning makeup artist, and Al Pacino. It was Dick Smith’s idea to stick a ten-pound blonde wig on my head, where it sat throughout the entire movie like a ton of bricks. I hated that wig. I didn’t have a clue why I was cast as an elegant WASP.
Al Pacino and I were told to get to know each other before we auditioned for the movie. I met him at O’Neals’ bar near Lincoln Center. He had just been named the Most Promising New Broadway Actor in Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? I was nervous. He seemed nervous too. I don’t remember talking about the script. I remember his killer Roman nose sitting in the middle of what remains a remarkable face. It was too bad he wasn’t available, but neither was I.
Oddly enough, it was after The Godfather that my working relationship with Woody really took off. He directed me for the first time in 1973 in Sleeper, and it was a piece of cake until the day Woody decided he wasn’t happy with a scene we were about to shoot. He went into his trailer and came out a half hour later with a new script. His character had become Blanche DuBois from A Streetcar Named Desire, and mine was Marlon Brando’s Stanley Kowalski. Marlon Brando? Besides being introduced to Mr. Brando at the reading of The Godfather, the only encounter we shared was when he passed me on the set and said, “Nice tits.” That wasn’t going to help. Then I remembered On the Waterfront and the line “I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.” I repeated it over and over before starting to memorize the lines. In the end Woody and I performed our Streetcar parody. But the memory of Terry Malloy’s “I coulda been somebody” is what remains.
Throughout the filming of Love and Death, Woody wrote to me. I was his endearing oaf. I had him pegged as a cross between a “White Thing” and the cockroach you couldn’t kill. We shared a love of torturing each other with our failures. His insights into my character were dead-on and hilarious. This bond remains the core of our friendship and, for me, love.
Filming Annie Hall was effortless. No one had any serious expectations. We were just having a good time moving through New York’s landmark locations. If a scene wasn’t working, Woody would do what he always did: rewrite it while Gordon Willis was setting up the shot. The choice of Willis as cinematographer was a turning point. With Gordon at his side, Woody learned how to shoot split screens and flashbacks and master shots with style. These innovations were new for comedy. Annie Hall, all dressed up in shadow and light, moving through time without a lot of arbitrary coverage, was seamless.
Woody’s direction was the same. Loosen up the dialogue. Forget the marks. Move around like a real person. Don’t make too much of the words, and wear what you want to wear. Wear what you want to wear? That was a first. So I did what Woody said, or, rather, I stole what I wanted to wear from the cool-looking women on the streets of SoHo. Annie’s khaki pants, vest, and tie came from them. I stole the hat from Aurore Clément, Dean Tavoularis’s future wife, who showed up on the set of The Godfather: Part II one day wearing a man’s slouchy bolero pulled down low over her forehead. Aurore’s hat put the finishing touch on the so-called Annie Hall look.
Most people assumed Annie Hall was the story of our relationship. My last name is Hall. Woody and I did share a significant romance, according to me, anyway. I did want to be a singer. I was insecure, and I did grope for words. After 35 years, does anybody care? What matters is Woody’s body of work. Annie Hall was his first love story. Love was the glue that held those witty vignettes together. However bittersweet, the message was clear: Love fades. Woody took a risk; he let the audience feel the sadness of goodbye in a funny movie.
From Dorothy Hall’s journal, March 1977
Jack and I held hands at the screening of Annie Hall. It was closing night of the Filmex Festival in Century City. The theater was flooded with lights and fireworks overhead. Inside, we found seats in the front row only. We chose to sit on the steps at the back of the room. ANNIE HALL. I only saw Diane, her mannerisms, expressions, dress, hair, etc., the total her. The story took second place. When she sang, “It Had to Be You” in a room full of talk and confusion, I fought back tears. But the song “Seems Like Old Times” was the hard one to take; so tender. I was exploding inside.
I tried to hold it all back. She looked beautiful. Gordon Willis did a very great job on the photography. She chose her own clothes and the gray T-shirt and baggy pants were “down home” for sure. Annie Hall is a love story. It seemed real. Annie’s camera in hand, her gum chewing, her lack of confidence; pure Diane. The story was tender, funny, and sad. It ended in separation, just like real life.
The Hall family was comic relief, especially the Randy character, named Duane. Woody’s character couldn’t understand Duane’s unique problems. Colleen Dewhurst as me was not a high spot. The Grammy Hall character was nothing more than a visual gag. And Jack’s part was not impressive. The audience loved it though. They were clapping and laughing the whole way through. This will be a very popular movie.