Actress Diane Hall, born Diane Keaton, was born in Los Angeles, California on January 5, 1946.  She was to become the oldest of four siblings.  Due to her most famous role in Annie Hall, Keaton was a young girl that would go on to mesmerize Hollywood with her strange personality quirks, her perpetually gloved hands, and her suit-tie combination fashion.  The lead in the 1977 film Annie Hall was Keaton’s breakout role and had been written expressly for her by her then boyfriend and the movie’s director, Woody Allen.  But this role, which was based on her real self and which had been created using Keaton’s nickname “Annie” and real last name “Hall”, was not her first one.

Keaton started her acting career at the Santa Ana College studying Drama but then decided to leave that school early to begin acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theater in New York.  There she had her first starring role in a Broadway play titled Hair in 1968.  A few years later she would get her first movie role in Lovers and Other Strangers in 1970.  But it was with the Woody Allen play Play It Again Sam that Diane Keaton both began a record of award-winning performances and a portion of her career that seemed to follow the trajectory of her dating life.  

The first movie of several that Keaton starred in that was directed by then boyfriend Woody Allen included the screen adaptation of Play It Again Sam.  She had won a Tony Award nomination for her role in the stage play version of it.   Five years later would come Keaton’s most acclaimed role in Annie Hall.  The other Woody Allen lead projects included Sleeper, Interiors, Radio Days, Manhattan, Love and Death, and Manhattan Murder Mystery.  Although comedy was where most of Keaton’s initial success resulted, she did earn a Golden Globe nomination for the 1977 scary thriller Looking for Mr. Goodbar. In that same year she received an Oscar win for Annie Hall and the film also won an Oscar for Best Picture. 

After her breakup with Allen, Keaton went on to engage in a relationship with Warren Beatty.  She starred in the movie Reds, which Beatty directed and for which she was nominated for an Oscar. She stepped outside of the usual routine of comedy acting or working in the films of who she was dating to star in the 1984 film The Little Drummer Girl and the Francis Ford Coppola franchise movies The Godfather, The Godfather: Part II, and The Godfather: Part III.  But she returned to her comedy roots alongside Steve Martin in films like the 1991’s Father of the Bride and the sequel Father of the Bride Part II in 1995 as well as by starring alongside Bette Midler in The First Wives Club in 1996 and along with Jack Nicholson in Something's Gotta Give in 2003.

Ultimately, Diane Keaton began taking the reins of her career when she began directing in 1987 starting with the documentary film Heaven.  She had done some great work in films like Baby Boom and Radio Days and she had received an Oscar nomination for 1998’s Marvin’s Room.  But she really carved a niche for herself in the films and other projects she directed like the acclaimed movie Unstrung Heroes in 1995, an episode of the quirky television show Twin Peaks as well as music videos.  Diane Keaton has garnered, along with her Oscar win, 23 other award nominations and 17 wins.

Keaton’s career had seen a meteoric rise, as demonstrated by her being paid $35,000 in 1972 for her role in The Godfather to 1.5 million dollars for the same role.   Her personal life has seen growth over the years with the never married Keaton’s adoption of a baby girl in 1996 and a baby boy in 2001.  The year 2008 will see Keaton continuing her prolific career in the lighter fare film titled Mad Money alongside Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes.