Diane Keaton death – latest: Oscar winner’s health ‘declined very suddenly’ in recent months, report says

Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon called Diane Keaton, who died on Saturday at age 79, her “absolute idol.”

In an Instagram post, Nixon shared how an childhood fascination with Keaton’s style and “vibe” imprinted on her.

“When I was a kid, Diane Keaton was my absolute idol. I loved her acting. I loved her vibe. I loved her everything. Starting with when I was 12, I tried to dress like her,” Nixon wrote. “I wore my hair long. I sported men’s hats and vests and (even though my eyes were fine) I wore bookish glasses because I thought they made me look more like her.”

She added that the chance to work on a film with Keaton was like a “dream come true.”

“A little more than a decade ago I got to be in a movie called Five Flights Up with her and it was like a dream come true. I was very shy around her, but I think she liked me and that meant everything to me,” she said.

She told readers that if they wanted to “know more about Diane Keaton,” they should watch her films, mentioning Annie Hall, for which she won an Academy Award for Best Actress, as well as Reds and Shoot the Moon.

But she said that if people wanted to truly know the woman in her own words, they should read her autobiography, Then Again, calling it “stunningly honest.”

“She was one of a kind,” Nixon wrote. “I’m so sad she is gone.”

Keaton’s fruitful partnership with Woody Allen perhaps peaked when she won Best Actress at the Academy Awards in 1978 for her titular role in Annie Hall.

During her five-decade career she was also awarded a BAFTA, two Golden Globes, and was given an AFI Life Achievement Award in 2017, which was presented by Allen.

Despite having several high-profile relationships — including with “Annie Hall” director Woody Allen — Diane Keaton never married, and she never expressed any regret over her decision.

“I’m really glad I didn’t get married. I’m an oddball,” she said, in an interview with People Magazine in 2019. “I remember in high school, this guy came up to me and said, ‘One day you’re going to make a good wife.’ And I thought, ‘I don’t want to be a wife. No.’”

“I don’t date,” she told AARP at the time. “Highly unlikely. I don’t remember anyone calling me, going, ‘This is so-and-so. I’d like to take you out.’ They don’t happen. Of course not.”

Her decision to remain single did not stop her from deciding to become a mother, however. Keaton adopted two children, her daughter Dexter and her son Duke. Both are in their 20’s.

Hollywood icon Jane Fonda remembered her “Book Club” costar Diane Keaton, who passed away on Saturday, in an Instagram post.

“It’s hard to believe…or accept…that Diane has passed. She was always a spark of life and light, constantly giggling at her own foibles, being limitlessly creative…in her acting, her wardrobe, her books, her friends, her homes, her library, her world view. Unique is what she was. And, though she didn’t know it or wouldn’t admit it, man she was a fine actress!”

Woody Allen, the controversial director of Annie Hall, which starred his one-time girlfriend Diane Keaton and earned her an Academy Award, is reportedly “extremely distraught and upset” by the news of her death, according to a People.

Sources close to Allen reportedly told the outlet that her death has shaken him and thinking “of his own mortality.”

Keaton and Allen reportedly remained friends in the years after their relationship ended. Keaton also regularly defended Allen, even after his ex-wife, Mia Farrow — whose adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, infamously became Allen’s next wife — accused him of sexually assaulting their daughter, Dylan.

Allen denied the claims and no charges were ever brought against him.

“Woody Allen is my friend and I continue to believe him,” Keaton wrote in 2018 after the allegations against Allen resurfaced in the light of the #MeToo movement. “It might be of interest to take a look at the 60 Minutes interview from 1992 and see what you think.”

For Diane Keaton, the concept of slowing down for anything or anyone was unthinkable, as she exemplified by pushing on relentlessly with her remarkable career well into her final years.

“I never understood the idea that you’re supposed to mellow as you get older,” Keaton told AARP in 2012. “Slowing down isn’t something I relate to at all. The goal is to continue in good and bad, all of it. To continue to express myself, particularly.”

The actor’s fierce independence and individuality was as evident in all aspects of her life, from her onscreen performances to her iconic androgynous wardrobe and eclectic habit of drinking red wine with ice. She remained grounded despite her immense fame, telling The Independent in 2015 that she took her fashion inspiration from “people off the street.”

Hollywood icon Viola Davis shared a tribute on Instagram praising Diane Keaton’s career.

“No!! No!!! No!! God, not yet, NO!!! Man… you defined womanhood,” Davis wrote. “The pathos, humor, levity, your ever-present youthfulness and vulnerability — you tattooed your SOUL into every role, making it impossible to imagine anyone else inhabiting them.”

“You were undeniably, unapologetically YOU!!! Loved you. Man… rest well,” she added. “God bless your family, and I know angels are flying you home.”

Actress and screenwriter Nia Vardalos praised Diane Keaton as a “comedy gal who set the bar high for all of us who came after.”

“Rest in peace sweet and funny Diane Keaton,” she wrote on Instagram.

Frozen star Josh Gad recalled how Diane Keaton “defined” his love of film in a post on Instagram.

“What a monumental loss,” he wrote on Saturday afternoon. “Diane Keaton in many ways defined my love of movies.”

Gad recalled working with the iconic actress on an HBO project.

“I was very fortunate to work with her many years ago on an unproduced HBO pilot and what I found was one of the most humble, ruthlessly funny, and unbelievably talented human beings I’ve ever come across,” he wrote.