Let's Just Say It Wasn't Pretty
Diane Keaton, 2014
Random House
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812994261
Summary
From Academy Award winner and bestselling author Diane Keaton comes a candid, hilarious, and deeply affecting look at beauty, aging, and the importance of staying true to yourself—no matter what anyone else thinks.
Diane Keaton has spent a lifetime coloring outside the lines of the conventional notion of beauty. In Let’s Just Say It Wasn’t Pretty, she shares the wisdom she’s accumulated through the years as a mother, daughter, actress, artist, and international style icon. This is a book only Diane Keaton could write—a smart and funny chronicle of the ups and downs of living and working in a world obsessed with beauty.
In her one-of-a-kind voice, Keaton offers up a message of empowerment for anyone who’s ever dreamed of kicking back against the “should”s and “supposed to”s that undermine our pursuit of beauty in all its forms. From a mortifying encounter with a makeup artist who tells her she needs to get her eyes fixed to an awkward excursion to Victoria’s Secret with her teenage daughter, Keaton shares funny and not-so-funny moments from her life in and out of the public eye.
For Diane Keaton, being beautiful starts with being true to who you are, and in this book she also offers self-knowing commentary on the bold personal choices she’s made through the years: the wide-brimmed hats, outrageous shoes, and all-weather turtlenecks that have made her an inspiration to anyone who cherishes truly individual style—and catnip to paparazzi worldwide. She recounts her experiences with the many men in her life—including Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, and Sam Shepard—shows how our ideals of beauty change as we age, and explains why a life well lived may be the most beautiful thing of all.
Wryly observant and as fiercely original as Diane Keaton herself, Let’s Just Say It Wasn’t Pretty is a head-turner of a book that holds up a mirror to our beauty obsessions—and encourages us to like what we see. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 5, 1946
• Where—Los Angeles, California, USA
• Education—Santa College and Orange College (no degrees)
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California
Diane Keaton is an American film actress, director, producer, and screenwriter. Keaton began her career on stage, and made her screen debut in 1970. Her first major film role was as Kay Adams-Corleone in The Godfather (1972), but the films that shaped her early career were those with director and co-star Woody Allen, beginning with Play It Again, Sam in 1972. Her next two films with Allen, Sleeper (1973) and Love and Death (1975), established her as a comic actor. Her fourth, Annie Hall (1977), won her the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Keaton subsequently expanded her range to avoid becoming typecast as her Annie Hall persona. She became an accomplished dramatic performer, starring in Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) and received Academy Award nominations for Reds (1981) and Marvin's Room (1996). Some of her popular later films include Baby Boom (1987), Father of the Bride (1991), The First Wives Club (1996), Something's Gotta Give (2003), and The Family Stone (2005). Keaton's films have earned a cumulative gross of over US$1.1 billion in North America.[1] In addition to acting, she is also a photographer, real estate developer, author, and occasional singer.
Background
Keaton was born as Diane Hall in Los Angeles, California. Her mother, Dorothy Deanne (née Keaton; 1921–2008), was a homemaker and amateur photographer; her father, John Newton Ignatius "Jack" Hall (1921–1990), was a real estate broker and civil engineer. Her father, from Nebraska, came from an Irish-American Catholic background, and her mother, originally from Kansas, came from a Methodist family, and had English, German, and more distant Austrian, ancestry.
Keaton was raised a Free Methodist by her mother. Her mother won the "Mrs. Los Angeles" pageant for homemakers; Keaton has said that the theatricality of the event inspired her first impulse to be an actress, and led to her wanting to work on stage. She has also credited Katharine Hepburn, whom she admires for playing strong and independent women, as one of her inspirations.
Keaton is a 1963 graduate of Santa Ana High School in Santa Ana, California. During her time there, she participated in singing and acting clubs at school, and starred as Blanche DuBois in a school production of A Streetcar Named Desire. After graduation, she attended Santa Ana College, and later Orange Coast College as an acting student, but dropped out after a year to pursue an entertainment career in Manhattan.
Upon joining the Actors' Equity Association, she adopted the surname of Keaton, her mother's maiden name, as there was already a registered Diane Hall. For a brief time, she also moonlighted at nightclubs with a singing act. She would later revisit her nightclub act in Annie Hall (1977) and a cameo in Radio Days (1987).
Early career
Keaton began studying acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City. She initially studied acting under the Meisner technique, an ensemble acting technique first evolved in the 1930s by Sanford Meisner, a New York stage actor/acting coach/director who had been a member of The Group Theater (1931–1940). She has described her acting technique as...
[being] only as good as the person you're acting with.... As opposed to going it on my own and forging my path to create a wonderful performance without the help of anyone. I always need the help of everyone!
According to her Reds co-star Warren Beatty, "She approaches a script sort of like a play in that she has the entire script memorized before you start doing the movie, which I don't know any other actors doing that.
In 1968, Keaton became an understudy to Sheila in the original Broadway production of Hair. She gained some notoriety for her refusal to disrobe at the end of Act I when the cast performs nude, even though nudity in the production was optional for actors (Those who performed nude received a $50 bonus). After acting in Hair for nine months, she auditioned for a part in Woody Allen's production of Play It Again, Sam. After nearly being passed over for being too tall (at 5 ft 8 in./1.73 m she is two inches/5 cm taller than Allen), she won the part. The rest is history.
Personal life
Keaton has had several romantic associations with noted entertainment industry personalities starting with her time with the Broadway production of Play It Again, Sam when she auditioned for director Woody Allen. Their association became personal following a dinner after a late night rehearsal. It was her sense of humor that attracted Allen. They briefly lived together during the Broadway production but by the time of the film release of the same name in 1972 their living arrangements became informal. They worked together on eight films between 1971 and 1993, remain friends and was said by Keaton to be one of her closest friends.
She was already dating Warren Beatty from 1979 when they had co-lead roles in the film Reds. Beatty was a regular subject in tabloid magazines and media coverage to which she was included much to her bewilderment. Her avoidance of the spotlight earned her in 1985 from Vanity Fair the attribution as "the most reclusive star since Garbo." This relationship ended, as had with Allen, shortly after Reds wrapped. Troubles with the production are thought to have caused strain on the relationship, including numerous financial and scheduling problems. Keaton remains friends with Beatty.
Keaton also had a relationship with fellow cast member Al Pacino in The Godfather Trilogy. The on-again, off-again relationship ended following the filming of The Godfather Part III. Keaton said of Pacino,
Al was simply the most entertaining man... To me, that's, that is the most beautiful face. I think Warren was gorgeous, very pretty, but Al's face is like whoa. Killer, killer face.
Pacino, who seems to have been the love of Keaton's life, never agreed to her marriage ultimatums, and their lengthy relationship ended during the time her father was dying of brain cancer.
In July 2001, Keaton revealed her thoughts on being older and unmarried, "I don't think that because I'm not married it's made my life any less. That old maid myth is garbage."
Keaton has two adopted children, daughter Dexter (adopted 1996) and son Duke (2001). Her father's death made mortality more prevalent and she decided to become a mother at age 50. She later said of having children, "Motherhood has completely changed me. It's just about the most completely humbling experience that I've ever had." (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/15/2014.)
Book Reviews
Let’s Just Say It Wasn’t Pretty could have been a cogent commentary on aging from the perspective of someone fighting a Hollywood system that marginalizes maturity. Instead, it’s an often too-flighty series of essays that la-di-das its way toward obvious conclusions, like the fact that attractiveness comes in many forms and colors, or that “while smiling is lovely...laughing is beautiful.” That may be true, but it’s also something most people knew before they opened Keaton’s book.
Jen Chaney - Washington Post
Relaxing and charming...like a dishy lunch with the movie star you thought you’d never be lucky enough to meet.... This is delicious writing and is full of a positive point of view, exclamations of the beauty of ordinary things and helped turn me from sour to sweet in the few hours that I was reading her book.... Diane Keaton is in a class by herself and this book is good for the soul.
Chicago Tribune
Wise, witty, thoughtful, uplifting, the truth, unvarnished—and very funny.
Toronto Star
Diane has now written a follow-up to her first best-seller, "Then Again." And this book is relaxing and charming, unlike everything else out there in the dark apocalyptic stacks. "Let's Just Say It Wasn't Pretty," well, it made me laugh out loud many times....This book is like a dishy lunch with the movie star you thought you'd never be lucky enough to meet. And Diane isn't coy, but she kind of is forever hiding her own stardom under a top hat or a derby. This is delicious writing and is full of a positive point of view, exclamations of the beauty of ordinary things, and it helped turn me from sour to sweet in the few hours that I was reading her book.
Liz Smith
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