Diane Keaton, Oscar-winning actress, dies

A family member told The Associated Press that Keaton died in California with loved ones. People magazine first reported the death on Saturday, noting that her health had suddenly declined. No other details were immediately available and representatives did not respond to request for comment.

The unexpected news was met with shock around the world.

Francis Ford Coppola, who cast her in “The Godfather,” wrote on Instagram that, “Words can’t express the wonder and talent of Diane Keaton. Endlessly intelligent, so beautiful…Everything about Diane was creativity personified.”

Bette Midler, who she costarred with Keaton in “The First Wives Club,” wrote, “She was hilarious, a complete original, and completely without guile, or any of the competitiveness one would have expected from such a star. What you saw was who she was…oh, la, lala!”

Leonardo DiCaprio, who played her nephew in “Marvin’s Room” when he was 18, wrote on Instagram that she was “one of a kind. Brilliant, funny and unapologetically herself…she will be deeply missed.”

Keaton was the kind of actor who helped make films iconic and timeless, from her “La-dee-da, la-dee-da” phrasing as Annie Hall, bedecked in that necktie, bowler hat, vest and khakis, to her heartbreaking turn as Kay Adams, the woman unfortunate enough to join the Corleone family.

Her star-making performances in the 1970s, many of which were in Woody Allen films, were not a flash in the pan either, and she would continue to charm new generations for decades thanks in part to a longstanding collaboration with filmmaker Nancy Meyers.

She played a businessperson who unexpectedly inherits an infant in “Baby Boom,” the mother of the bride in the beloved remake of “Father of the Bride,” a newly single woman in “The First Wives Club,” and a divorced playwright who gets involved with Jack Nicholson’s music executive in “Something’s Gotta Give.”

Keaton won an Oscar for “Annie Hall” and would go on to be nominated three more times, for “Reds,” playing the journalist and suffragist Louise Bryant, “Marvin’s Room,” as a caregiver who suddenly needs care herself, and “Something’s Gotta Give,” as a middle-aged divorcee who is the object of several men’s affections.

Keaton was born Diane Hall in January 1946 in Los Angeles, though her family was not part of the film industry she would find herself in. Her mother was a homemaker and photographer, and her father was in real estate and civil engineering, and both would inspire her love in the arts, from fashion to architecture.