Woody Allen pens emotional Diane Keaton tribute

Woody Allen is mourning the loss of Diane Keaton, who starred alongside him in the career-defining film “Annie Hall.”

In an emotional essay for The Free Press, Allen, 89, remembered Keaton, whose death was confirmed Saturday, Oct. 11, at 79, as “charming,” “magical,” and “beautiful.”

“Unlike anyone the planet has experienced or is unlikely to ever see again, her face and laugh illuminated any space she entered,” wrote Allen, who shared both a romantic and creative relationship with Keaton for just under a decade. “I first laid eyes on her lanky beauty at an audition and thought, ‘If Huckleberry Finn was a gorgeous young woman, he’d be Keaton.'”

Diane Keaton dies. The Oscar-winning ‘Annie Hall’ and ‘Godfather’ actress was 79.

Keaton appeared in eight of Allen’s films and was widely regarded as his muse for a significant portion of the controversial director and writer’s early success. She stood by him in later years, after Allen’s star was tarnished by allegations that he molested his adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, and after he married ex Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn.

“She was so charming, so beautiful, so magical, that I questioned my sanity. I thought: ‘Could I be in love so quickly?'” Allen wrote, describing his early days acting alongside Keaton in “Play it Again, Sam.”

He went on to describe their relationship glowingly, saying he began to create films for “an audience of one.”

Keaton “had huge talent for comedies and drama, but she could also dance and sing with feeling,” Allen wrote. “She also wrote books and did photography, made collages, decorated homes, and directed films. Finally, she was a million laughs to be around.

“For all her shyness and self-effacing personality, she was totally secure in her own aesthetic judgment,” he continued, adding a particularly graphic anecdote about her bouts with bulimia while the two lived together.

“We had a few great personal years together and finally we both moved on, and why we parted only God and Freud might be able to figure out,” Allen wrote, “And her great laugh still echoes in my head.”

Keaton’s cause of death has not yet been revealed. The Los Angeles Fire Department confirmed to People and celebrity.land that it responded to Keaton’s home and transported a woman to the hospital.