Carol Bayer Sager, a longtime friend of Diane Keaton, said she was shocked at how vulnerable she seemed the last time they met.
“I met her a couple weeks ago,” the songwriter told People. “She had lost a lot of weight.”
Sager, who co-wrote Keaton’s single “First Christmas,” said he didn’t see Keaton much this year as he was spending time in Palm Springs following the California wildfires in January.
“She had to go to Palm Springs because her house was damaged inside and everything had to be cleaned out,” Sager explained. “She was there for a while, and when she came back, I was kind of surprised by her weight loss.”
Nevertheless, the composer of “A Groovy Kind of Love” said that Keaton “was a magical light for everyone.”
“I just loved her. She was a very special person and would light up a room with her energy. She was happy and cheerful and taking pictures of everything she saw. She was totally creative. She never stopped creating.”
Sager also recalled when he was working on “First Christmas,” which was released in November 2024.
“She absolutely loved recording this song,” Sager recalls. “She was almost childish about it. She was really authentic when she sang it. I mean, she just sang it, and she seemed to act it out, because she’s a great actress. And she started crying as she sang. But she did such a beautiful job.”
Keaton and Sager were part of a weekly “movie group” that also included Keaton’s “First Wives Club” co-star Bette Midler.
Midler remembered Keaton on social media over the weekend.
“The wonderful, beautiful, extraordinary Diane Keaton has passed away,” the “Beach” star wrote alongside a photo of the late actress. “Words can’t express how excruciatingly sad this makes me. She was hilarious, completely original, without any of the malice or competitiveness you would expect from a star like that. What you saw was who she was…Oh, la, la!”
Keaton’s death was announced Saturday. She was 79 years old.
The cause of death has not yet been determined, but her health reportedly deteriorated rapidly in recent months.
