Then Again
Diane Keaton, 2012
Random House
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812980950
Summary
Mom loved adages, quotes, slogans. There were always little reminders pasted on the kitchen wall. For example, the word THINK. I found THINK thumbtacked on a bulletin board in her darkroom. I saw it Scotch-taped on a pencil box she’d collaged. I even found a pamphlet titled THINK on her bedside table. Mom liked to THINK.
So begins Diane Keaton’s unforgettable memoir about her mother and herself. In it you will meet the woman known to tens of millions as Annie Hall, but you will also meet, and fall in love with, her mother, the loving, complicated, always-thinking Dorothy Hall. To write about herself, Diane realized she had to write about her mother, too, and how their bond came to define both their lives.
In a remarkable act of creation, Diane not only reveals herself to us, she also lets us meet in intimate detail her mother. Over the course of her life, Dorothy kept eighty-five journals—literally thousands of pages—in which she wrote about her marriage, her children, and, most probingly, herself. Dorothy also recorded memorable stories about Diane’s grandparents. Diane has sorted through these pages to paint an unflinching portrait of her mother—a woman restless with intellectual and creative energy, struggling to find an outlet for her talents—as well as her entire family, recounting a story that spans four generations and nearly a hundred years.
More than the autobiography of a legendary actress, Then Again is a book about a very American family with very American dreams. Diane will remind you of yourself, and her bonds with her family will remind you of your own relationships with those you love the most. (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
[A] far-reaching, heartbreaking, absolutely lucid book about mothers, daughters, childhood, aging, mortality, joyfulness, love, work and the search for self-knowledge. Show business too…this book manages to present the full spectrum of women's experiences, from babyhood to adolescence, youthful insecurity…to liberating adulthood to slow, lingering death. Its power as a collage has been greatly enhanced by tight, punchy editing of the fragments that Ms. Keaton variously writes or excerpts. Some of its stories are universal and painful, yet this book is not mired in melancholy. Instead it's inspiring in its empathy, wisdom and self-knowledge.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
[R]ich and ruminative, provocatively honest, jumbled and jittery and textured. It speaks in two voices: Keaton is bitingly wry, ironic and tough about herself, but pleadingly earnest and passionate when writing of her mother, to whom she feels she owes her success, her self-esteem—just about everything. It's as if she's bargaining with her readers: she'll open her life to view and dish the dirt she knows we want, as long as we love her mother as she did. It's worth taking her up on it.
Sheila Weller -New York Times Book Review
Although peek-behind-the-curtain moments are delicious—Woody Allen! Warren Beatty! Jack Nicholson!...this is a [memoir] about a mother and a daughter, with insights and confessions and lessons to which all readers can relate.
Wall Street Journal
Then Again reads like the diary of an ordinary woman who suddenly became a movie star, who doesn’t quite believe any of it happened, but it did.
Los Angeles Times
Both heartbreaking and joyful, [Then Again] covers the gamut of life experiences facing all women.
Chicago Sun-Times
For anyone looking to join one woman’s—albeit a famous woman’s—touching and funny journey into the vortex that is the parent-child relationship, Then Again features an especially honest tour guide.
USA Today
A poem about women living in one another’s not uncomplicated memories.... Part of what makes Diane Keaton’s memoir, Then Again, truly amazing is that she does away with the star’s ‘me’ and replaces it with a daughter’s ‘I.’
Hilton Als - New Yorker
As warm, funny, and self-deprecating as Keaton’s onscreen persona—[Then Again] traces a profound dramatic arc: that of a young woman coming into her own as an artist, and of a daughter becoming a mother.
Vogue
This book feels like Diane Keaton. Which means it’s lovable.
Entertainment Weekly
This audio production of Keaton’s memoir delivers something you won’t get in the print edition: Diane Keaton herself. As a narrator, Keaton’s personality, talent, and vulnerability shine through.... This audio weaves Hall’s journal entries, by turns joyous and painful, with Keaton’s memories from her childhood and adult life. Entertaining and a must for fans.
Publishers Weekly
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