Goldie Hawn and Sarah Paulson remembered their late friend Diane Keaton with a deeply emotional tribute at The Hollywood Reporter’s Women in Entertainment gala in Los Angeles that brought tears to many in the audience.
Hawn was sobbing as she took the stage Wednesday morning at the Beverly Hills Hotel after attendees viewed a video montage of Keaton’s life and career, including clips from Annie Hall, The Godfather and The First Wives Club along with archival interviews and video of her various accolades, including her AFI Life Achievement Award ceremony.
At the event, presented by Lifetime, Hawn shared that her The First Wives Club co-star — whose Oct. 11 death shocked fans — lived nearby, so close they were able to talk to each other from their yards.
“Then it came time when she passed, and I happened to learn when I was in my backyard, and I went over to my backyard to my rose garden,” Hawn said. “I just looked down. She can’t be gone. She just cannot be gone. No one like that should ever die. She just brought so much joy, so much life, so much exuberance. She was like lightning in a bottle.”
Hawn continued: “She was just an extraordinary human being. Yeah, she’s an amazing actress. Look what she can do. Look at this natural aspect of how her body and mind work together and how she’s able to bring us joy and give us emotion and all of it. But look what else she did. She wrote books. She was interested in many things, not just acting and producing, but also directing.”
Hawn explained how she felt it was a challenge to properly pay tribute to Keaton and all she meant to her and so many fans, explaining that social media didn’t seem adequate for her thoughts.
“How do you say all of this in an Instagram? How do you say ‘I love you’ in many ways in an Instagram? I remember sitting there crying like, ‘what am I gonna say?’ I know I’m gonna be asked to say something. It was like I didn’t know what to say,” she said. “This amazing human. … It’s like trying to explain what a taste of a tangerine tastes like.”
Hawn relayed memories of when she, Keaton and Bette Midler were shooting The First Wives Club.
“When we did this movie, we worked together, she was very tenacious,” Hawn said. “She’s an incredibly hard worker. At the same time, she would come into the makeup trailer, which is my favorite thing, and she had a different hat on every day,” Hawn shared, noting Keaton’s iconic signature style.
Hawn also noted that “love didn’t work out for” Keaton, but the actress decided to take on a new role as a single mother. (She adopted two children, Dexter and Duke, when she was in her 50s, who are now in their 20s.)
“I was so lucky because I was able to meet Dexter on her first days of life, and she brought her to the trailer,” Hawn said. “I was able to hold her and see a whole new world … opening up for Diane of being a mother.”
Hawn ended her comments by noting that Keaton was “like a little lightning bug. She would fly up over here and you’d go try to catch her. [But] she was on a journey. She never looked back, and she was a pure, pure, whatever you wanna call it, you call it stars or — I think that she is a star. We can have a fantasy; what I do is that stars are really people who died a long time ago. They did something really good for the world. I think maybe it’s where she is right now.”
Paulson similarly noted the difficulty she felt when trying to figure out what to say about her friend of many years when she took the stage.
“I really wasn’t sure I wanted to do this, show up on a Wednesday morning to talk about one of the greatest human beings the world has ever known,” she began in her remarks. “A magical creature who somehow, horribly, is no longer with us. … A person beloved by the world. Her name was Diane Keaton Hall, and she was surely one of the great loves of my life.”
Paulson noted that she presented THR’s Sherry Lansing Leadership Award to Keaton at the 2012 Women in Entertainment event. She shared that Keaton had told her at the time jokingly in an email, “I’m sorry you got stuck writing a speech about me. Don’t be nice. It’s OK to let everyone know even an idiot can endure.”
Paulson said Keaton was a “class act,” sharing a story of how her late friend stayed long after she needed to on the set of The Other Sister to go over lines with her, “even though at that time she had a 2-year-old daughter at home waiting for her. She did ask me, however, if it would mess me up or distract me if she were to take off her costume and get into her street clothes, which I wish I had known would include six pairs of tights, a bowler hat, suspenders, a couple of crinolines and, in her gloved right hand, a massive glass of red wine on ice.”
They became longtime friends after the movie wrapped. They texted and emailed and hung out many times over the years. To show what their friendship was like, Paulson shared some of their texts and emails, including:
- “Moron, what is your address? 6:30, Diane Keaton, actress.”
- “Sarah, I hate your phone. It is always full and I can never leave a message.”
- “You sent me an email very recently, but it’s gone. Don’t ask why. Don’t ask what I did. I’m a loser from way back.”
- “Keep me abreast on developments. Diane, one of your friends.”
- “As usual, your voicemail is full. What makes you so fucking popular?”
- “Seriously, [Paulson’s partner, Holland Taylor] was full of energy this morning when we ran into each other. She’s a force, totally charming, unique. You, on the other hand, you are a numbskull. It’s sad, you had so much potential.”
- “Sarah, I saw your movie last night. Your acting was great and you look beautiful. I tried to leave a message, but as usual, your voicemail was full. As usual, I called, as usual, your mailbox is full. As usual, I don’t want to write a message. As usual, I wanna see your face. As usual, I’m leaving town or you’re leaving town, all as usual.”
- “We are so fortunate. Do you love being an actress? I don’t.”
- “You are impossible to contact. I’m going to talk to Holland about you. First of all, you remain unreachable by phone. What the fuck are you doing? One of your very few old friends.”
- “Look, I’ve had it with your phone machine. I’ve tried calling you so many times, it’s creepy. I’ve tried both numbers I have and I can never get a chance to relay what I want to say. Every time I try to call you, I’m rejected. Do you have some secret phone number?”
Paulson ended her remarks by sharing an email she wishes she could send to Keaton today.
“Dear Dum-Dum, I wanna tell you I’m sorry my voicemail was always full. I want to tell you I’m sorry I wasn’t available by the time you called. I want to tell you how much crummier the world is without you in it. I want to tell you everything that happened in my life in the 54 days since you left. I want to tell you how the world lost its mind with grief the day you died. And I want to tell you, I will miss you forever and I continue to be a moron, and I know that you would be heartened to know that. But most of all, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for being my friend, Sarah Paulson.”
The 2025 Women in Entertainment gala, timed to the release of THR‘s annual Power 100 list, also included the presentation of the Equity in Entertainment Award to Jennifer Lopez, the Sherry Lansing Award to this week’s cover star, Gwyneth Paltrow, and a keynote speech by Molly McNearney.
The 2025 WIE event, presented by Lifetime, was sponsored by Delta Air Lines, Medicube, Reyka Vodka, Seven Bucks Productions and in partnership with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Los Angeles, Entertainment Industry Foundation, Gersh, Chapman University and Loyola Marymount University.
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