“HOLLYWOOD STUNNED: Diane Keaton Dead at 79 — PEOPLE Magazine’s Emotional Tribute REVEALS Untold Secrets of Her Life, Lost Loves, and Final Days! Fans in Tears Over Shocking Revelations… What She Hid Until the End Will Leave You Breathless!”

The Oscar winner stood out in Hollywood with her unfiltered wit and quirky charm — and had zero interest in being anything but herself

The actress and architecture aficionado (she flipped houses for years) would regularly drive round-trip from Los Angeles to Tucson in a day and stop to take photos of different styles of homes. She’d also chat up anyone she met. “[If] I don’t have my hat on, which seems to identify me, people treat me like a regular person,” she told PEOPLE in 2017.

Describing herself as a “greeter,” Keaton was unfailingly kind to fans. “Life is difficult as it is. Let’s just be friendly,” she added. “We’re lucky we’re here.”

It was an edict Keaton always lived by. Quirky, candid and delightfully unpredictable, the Oscar winner, bestselling author and unexpected style icon embodied a star power built on authenticity rather than perfection.

Onscreen she was a kooky muse: to ’70s sophisticates in Annie Hall, moms in the Father of the Bride movies, vibrant women of a certain age in The First Wives Club and Something’s Gotta Give. Offscreen she had a passion for home renovation, gloves, wide-brimmed hats and golden retrievers.

Never married (despite dating “unattainable greats,” as she called her high-profile beaus), the actress found the true loves of her life when she became a mom in her 50s, adopting daughter Dexter, now 29, and son Duke, 25.

Keaton with her son Duke and daughter Dexter in 2017.Michael Kovac/Getty

Asked shortly after she turned 60 how she felt about the milestone, Keaton was clearly grateful. “You’re very definitely reaching a new phase in your life,” she said. “I love being alive and moderately healthy. You just go, ‘Okay. All right. Moving on.’ ”

Privately, Keaton’s health took a devastating turn in recent months. On Oct. 11 a family spokesperson broke the news to People that the actress had died that morning at age 79. “Her family has asked for privacy in this moment of great sadness,” the rep said. No further details were released as of press time.

“She declined very suddenly, which was heartbreaking for everyone who loved her,” says a close friend of Keaton’s. Songwriter and friend Carole Bayer Sager recalls seeing Keaton a few weeks ago and being “stunned by how much weight she’d lost.” Still, “she just lit up a room with her energy.”

Keaton at her TCL Chinese Theatre hand and footprint ceremony.Stewart Cook/Shutterstock

As for any medical diagnosis, her family “chose to keep things very private,” her close friend adds. “Even longtime friends weren’t fully aware of what was happening.”

Stars across the generations in Hollywood paid tribute to Keaton, expressing great admiration — and sorrow. “For all her shyness and self-effacing personality, she was totally secure in her own aesthetic judgment,” wrote director Woody Allen, her ex and lifelong friend

Kimberly Williams-Paisley, who played her daughter in Father of the Bride, recalls how Keaton called “every single person who worked on [the last one] and just told them what a great job they did. She was just very giving like that.”

Keaton, Martin Short and Kimberly Williams-Paisley in ‘Father of the Bride 2’.Touchstone/Kobal/Shutterstock

Writer-director and friend Nancy Meyers, who collaborated with Keaton on four films, wrote that “we’ve lost a giant. . . . When I needed her to cry in scene after scene in Something’s Gotta Give, she went at it hard and then somehow made it funny. She was fearless, she was like nobody ever, she was born to be a movie star.”

Keaton, who described herself as “the most ordinary girl ever” during her childhood, was born Jan. 5, 1946, in Los Angeles to father Jack, a civil engineer, and mother Dorothy Deanne, an amateur photographer.

The oldest of four, including brother Randy and sisters Robin and Dorrie, she dropped out of community college at 19 to study acting in New York City.

Diane Keaton school portrait.Courtesy of Diane Keaton

Making her Broadway debut in 1968 in the musical Hair, Keaton then starred in Allen’s 1969 play Play It Again, Sam, sparking an on-off romance and a lasting professional relationship with him.

Her film career took off when Francis Ford Coppola cast her in The Godfather in 1972, and she reprised the role for the sequel in 1974, the same year she began dating her costar Al Pacino.

In 1978 she won her only Oscar, for Allen’s Annie Hall (they remained friends throughout her life, and she supported him amid the controversy over sexual abuse allegations by his daughter Dylan Farrow). She kept the Oscar in her closet. “I don’t want to put it on display, it’s silly!” she told PEOPLE. “Enough already, Diane, we know.” Her turn in Reds in 1981 resulted in another Oscar nomination — and a relationship with costar Warren Beatty.

Keaton won an Oscar for ‘Annie Hall’.Everett

Making more than 60 films over nearly six decades, Keaton also directed, garnering praise for 1995’s Unstrung Heroes. She earned more Oscar nods for Marvin’s Room in 1996 and Something’s Gotta Give with Jack Nicholson in 2003. Of their memorable sex scene, Keaton insisted it “was awkward. But he was hilarious. We spent a lot of time in bed chatting away.”

She kept working steadily, voicing Dory’s mom in 2016’s Finding Dory and doing two Book Club movies. Summer Camp in 2024 marked her final film.

Outside of the spotlight, Keaton’s hobbies spanned real estate, writing, photography and music. “She’d walk neighborhoods and admire the people’s homes that caught her eye,” says a friend. “She would peek through her neighbor’s yard or look in their windows.” She also became a caregiver for her brother Randy, who suffered from mental health issues and lived in a facility for dementia.

Ruven Afanador

The only role that never interested the actress was wife. “I think I’m the only one in my generation and maybe before who’s been a single woman all her life,” she told PEOPLE in 2019. “I’m really glad I didn’t [get married].”

As for her famous lovers, she joked, “I’m sure they’re happy about it too.” She admitted she “should not have been so seduced by talent. When you’re both doing the same job, it’s not so great. I should have found just a nice human being, kind of a family guy.”

In her final years, Keaton, who’d always eschewed plastic surgery, became a model for aging gracefully. “You have to experience what it’s like to be an older person. You just have to let it be what it is,” she told PEOPLE. But no more romance. “The answer is no,” she said. “I can’t remember the last time someone was attracted to me. I’m good friendship material.”

Keaton at Paris Washion Week in 2023.Pierre Suu/Getty

She also remained a fashion inspiration, joining Instagram and sharing her creative mix-and-match, layered ensembles. “I have always been flamboyant with clothes no matter what age,” she told PEOPLE of her one-of-a-kind style. “I’ve gone into the deep end at times, but I’ve always enjoyed it.”

Until the end, Keaton’s joie de vivre remained a force. “I really accomplished what I wanted in my dream life, which was to be an actress in the movies,” she said. “But once you do that and get older, everything changes. Life is so much more interesting than what I ever imagined it would be.”