Hollywood has lost one of its most beloved stars. Diane Keaton, the Oscar-winning actress who captivated audiences for nearly six decades with her unforgettable performances in Annie Hall, The Godfather trilogy, and The First Wives Club, died in California on Saturday, October 11, 2025. She was 79 years old.
A family spokesperson confirmed the news to People magazine, requesting privacy during this difficult time. No further details about her passing have been released.
Born Diane Hall in Los Angeles on January 5, 1946, Keaton was the eldest of four children.
After appearing in the Broadway musical Hair at age 22, Keaton earned a Tony nomination for her performance in Woody Allen’s Play It Again, Sam in 1969. But it was her transition to film that would cement her place in cinema history.
Keaton’s big break came when Francis Ford Coppola cast her as Kay Adams, the girlfriend of Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone, in The Godfather (1972). What many don’t know? She didn’t even read Mario Puzo’s bestselling novel before her audition.
The film won Best Picture at the Oscars, and Keaton reprised her role in both sequels.
She and Pacino became romantically involved during the filming of The Godfather Part II.
In 1977, Keaton achieved what would become her most iconic role in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall.
The film was a box office hit and earned Keaton the Academy Award for Best Actress, along with BAFTA, Golden Globe, and several critics’ circle awards.
Allen based the character loosely on Keaton herself. Many of Keaton’s mannerisms and self-deprecating humour were incorporated into the role.
The film’s signature look featured Keaton in traditionally masculine clothing like neckties, vests, and structured trousers, creating a revolutionary style that launched an entire fashion movement.
At the time of her death, Keaton’s net worth was estimated at $100 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. While her acting career brought fame, her passion for high-end real estate flipping significantly boosted her wealth.
Keaton specialised in restoring architecturally significant homes across Los Angeles and Southern California, particularly Spanish Colonial, Mission Revival, and mid-century modern properties. She renovated homes designed initially by notable architects like Lloyd Wright and Wallace Neff, often overseeing every detail herself, from tile selections to paint colours.
Her profitable flips included a Laguna Beach property she sold for $12.75 million after purchasing it for $7.5 million in 2004, and a Pacific Palisades home she flipped for $6.9 million in 2016 after buying it for $5.6 million.
Keaton never married. “Today I was thinking, I’m the only one in my generation of actresses who has been a single woman all her life,” she explained to People in 2019. “I’m really glad I didn’t get married. I’m an oddball.”
She didn’t start a family until she was 50, saying she was “a late developer” and that if she got married, she would’ve had to “compromise too much.”
Keaton adopted daughter Dexter in 1996 and son Duke in 2001. “Motherhood was not an urge I couldn’t resist, it was more like a thought I’d been thinking for a very long time. So I plunged in,” she told Ladies’ Home Journal in 2008.
Over the years, she was romantically linked to Woody Allen, Al Pacino, and Warren Beatty. “Talent is so damn attractive,” she noted.
Keaton spent her final months largely out of the public eye. Her last public appearances were holiday shopping in December 2024 and running errands in August 2024 in Los Angeles, dressed in her signature bowl hat, glasses, and menswear-inspired attire.
Prior to that, she was spotted at the 2023 U.S. Open Tennis Championships in New York City, cheering during the final game between Coco Gauff and Aryna Sabalenka.
In a 2021 interview with Carol Kane, when asked what she valued most, Keaton responded:
“I value a very strong friendship, like ours, which I’ve depended on for such a long time. I love to walk with my dog. These are the things I love. And I really do love nature… I guess my favorite thing in life is the fact that I can see. It’s just so unbelievable.”
She remained active on Instagram, posting updates about her life, reflections on her career, and praising those she loved. In 2021, she appeared in Justin Bieber’s music video for “Ghost,” playing a grandmother encouraged to date again after her husband’s death. “Am I dreaming???” she wrote on Instagram. “What an honor it was to work with Justin Bieber and his incredible team.”
At the time of her passing, Keaton had three projects in the works: Artist in Residence with Josh Hutcherson, The Making of with Blake Lively, and Constance, directed by Mark Pellington.
Following the news of Keaton’s death, tributes poured in from colleagues and fans. Bette Midler wrote on Instagram: “The brilliant, beautiful, extraordinary Diane Keaton has died. I cannot tell you how unbearably sad this makes me. She was hilarious, a complete original, and completely without guile, or any of the competitiveness one would have expected from such a star.”
Kimberly Williams-Paisley, who played Keaton’s daughter in Father of the Bride, said: “Diane, working with you will always be one of the highlights of my life. You are one of a kind, and it was thrilling to be in your orbit for a time. Thank you for your kindness, your generosity, your talent, and above all, your laughter.”
Looking back on her career, Keaton once told People:
“I don’t know anything, and I haven’t learned. Getting older hasn’t made me wiser. Without acting I would have been a misfit.”
But she was anything but a misfit. Keaton was called “one of the great American actresses from the heyday of the 1970s,” a style icon and a “treasure” with a personal and professional style that is “difficult to explicate and impossible to duplicate.”
Keaton is survived by her two children, Dexter and Duke.
