Diane Keaton has been the love of my life all of my life. She just has. It was partly her pairing with Woody Allen, of course, but it was who she became that interested me. Who she is continues to interest me, probably many others too. Now she’s written a memoir which I cannot wait to dig into. As a Keaton-phile, I am so interested to read about the details of her evolution. She’s so bright, so curious, so funny. She’s Annie Hall. And always will be. So I dressed like her in high school. I wish I could dress like her now but she’s way way out of my league. I used to pass her on Sunset when I was working at UCLA and she was dropping off her kid. I’d pass her — me in my Toyota, she in her Mercedes SUV, lined face that has never gone under the needle or knife, driving not crazily like Annie did (“Is this a sandwich or what?”) but focused and intent. I used to pass her and think “there goes the woman I love.” I know, I’m a tad psychotic when it comes to Ms. Keaton. Here is an excerpt from her book – but this wonderful story about her has just been published in Vogue (thanks to @lePuu on Twitter for the link). I love what she says about Woody. There is so much about him his fans don’t know.
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.
