What you need to know
Diane Keaton died on October 11 at the age of 79, leaving behind a legacy of stardom like no other. She won a Best Actress Oscar for 1977’s Annie Hall, and her long career included films such as The First Wives Club, multiple collaborations with director Nancy Meyers, and the Book Club series.
She was born Diane Hall in Los Angeles in 1946, the eldest of four children to a civil engineer and a homemaker.
But even as a child, Keaton knew her mother was dreaming of something bigger. “Deep down she probably wanted to be an entertainer of some sort,” the actress told PEOPLE in 2004. “She sang, she played the piano, she was beautiful. She was my spokesperson.”
The former Diane Hall adopted her mother’s maiden name Keaton as her professional name, as she was already registered with Actors Equity.
In honor of Keaton’s incredible legacy, take a look back at memories of her mother in this excerpt from her 2012 memoir, Then Again, available exclusively to PEOPLE.
look west
My first memory is of shadows making patterns on the wall. Inside the crib, I saw the silhouette of a woman with long hair moving over the bar. My mother was mysterious, even as she picked me up and held me. It was as if he knew that this world and life within it was full of unknown yet fascinating, enduring, and questionable romances. As if I would spend the rest of my life trying to understand her. Is this memory real? I don’t know.
A few things stand out. It was a snowstorm in Los Angeles when I was three years old. The Quonset hut where we lived until I was 5 years old. It was in great shape. I’ve loved Arch ever since. One night, I found my neighbor Mr. Aigner singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” in his dad’s newly paved driveway. I thought I was going to get into trouble. Instead, he described me as “a wonderfully talented young woman.”
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Dad worked for the Department of Water and Power in downtown Los Angeles. When I was five years old, I went to visit him in his office. There was something captivating about looking west from the Angels Flight trolley car. A tall building like City Hall could be seen over the hill. I loved Clifton’s Cafeteria and Broadway Department Store. Everything was concentrated, specific, angular, and vibrant. Downtown was perfect. I thought heaven must look like Los Angeles. But nothing beats the joy of pulling your mom’s arm and saying, “Look, look, mom.” We both loved watching.
It was difficult for my mother to know whether she liked watching or writing. Her scrapbooks, at least when I was little, were ruined by endless descriptions beneath the pictures. As I got older, I avoided unwanted envelopes containing her “Letter to Diane” like the plague. Who cared about the letter? I just wanted a photo. But when I decided to write a memoir at age 63, I started reading my mother’s diary out of order.
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In the middle of this process, I came across what I thought was her own attempt at a memoir. The top of the cover has the year 1980 embossed in gold. That means she started writing this book when she was 59 years old. Each item is dated. Sometimes the mother would start an excerpt and then stop, leaving dozens of pages empty. Or he might write a paragraph about an event, return to it years later, and then resume a different approach a few months later.
Over the course of five years, she drifted in and out of childhood events as if she were freely dating. Most of the time, Dorothy’s tone was generous, sweet, and sometimes melancholy. But there were times when this was not the case. She must have looked at her life in the 1930s, when she was caught between the strict rules set by the Free Methodist Church and the temptations of living outside Beulah’s constraints. I don’t want to believe it to be true, but life dealt Dorothy some punches and she couldn’t bounce back.
Excerpt from “Then Again” by Diane Keaton. Copyright © 2011 Diane Keaton. Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without written permission from the publisher.
Then Again by Diane Keaton is available now wherever books are sold.
