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Numerous talented performers have starred in rom-coms. Ordinarily, if they want to win an Oscar, they need to shift for weightier characters. Diane Keaton, who passed away recently, charted a different course and executed it with seamless ease. Her debut significant performance was in the classic The Godfather, as dramatic an American masterpiece as ever produced. Yet in the same year, she reprised the part of Linda, the object of a nerdy hero’s affection, in a film adaptation of Broadway’s Play It Again, Sam. She regularly juggled intense dramas with romantic comedies across the seventies, and the lighter fare that earned her the Academy Award for best actress, changing the genre permanently.

The Academy Award Part

That Oscar was for the film Annie Hall, co-written and directed by Allen, with Keaton portraying Annie, a component of the couple’s failed relationship. Allen and Keaton dated previously before production, and remained close friends throughout her life; when speaking publicly, Keaton portrayed Annie as a perfect image of herself, from Allen’s perspective. One could assume, then, to think her acting meant being herself. Yet her breadth in Keaton’s work, both between her Godfather performance and her comedic collaborations and inside Annie Hall alone, to dismiss her facility with funny romances as merely exuding appeal – though she was, of course, incredibly appealing.

Evolving Comedy

Annie Hall notably acted as Allen’s transition between more gag-based broad comedies and a more naturalistic style. Consequently, it has plenty of gags, dreamlike moments, and a improvised tapestry of a love story recollection in between some stinging insights into a fated love affair. Keaton, similarly, led an evolution in American rom-coms, playing neither the fast-talking screwball type or the sexy scatterbrain common in the fifties. Rather, she blends and combines elements from each to invent a novel style that still reads as oddly contemporary, halting her assertiveness with her own false-start hesitations.

Watch, for example the moment when Annie and Alvy initially bond after a tennis game, stumbling through reciprocal offers for a ride (even though only a single one owns a vehicle). The dialogue is quick, but veers erratically, with Keaton navigating her unease before concluding with of that famous phrase, a phrase that encapsulates her quirky unease. The story embodies that sensibility in the next scene, as she engages in casual chat while navigating wildly through Manhattan streets. Later, she centers herself performing the song in a club venue.

Depth and Autonomy

These aren’t examples of Annie acting erratic. Across the film, there’s a dimensionality to her light zaniness – her lingering counterculture curiosity to experiment with substances, her panic over lobsters and spiders, her refusal to be manipulated by Alvy’s attempts to mold her into someone outwardly grave (in his view, that signifies preoccupied with mortality). Initially, the character may look like an odd character to earn an award; she’s the romantic lead in a movie seen from a man’s point of view, and the central couple’s arc doesn’t bend toward sufficient transformation accommodate the other. But Annie evolves, in manners visible and hidden. She simply fails to turn into a more suitable partner for the male lead. Plenty of later rom-coms borrowed the surface traits – anxious quirks, quirky fashions – not fully copying her final autonomy.

Lasting Influence and Later Roles

Perhaps Keaton felt cautious of that trend. After her working relationship with Allen ended, she stepped away from romantic comedies; Baby Boom is practically her single outing from the complete 1980s period. But during her absence, the character Annie, the persona even more than the free-form film, emerged as a template for the genre. Actress Meg Ryan, for example, owes most of her rom-com career to Keaton’s skill to embody brains and whimsy at once. This rendered Keaton like a everlasting comedy royalty despite her real roles being matrimonial parts (be it joyfully, as in the movie Father of the Bride, or not as much, as in that ensemble comedy) and/or parental figures (see The Family Stone or Because I Said So) than unattached women finding romance. Even in her comeback with Woody Allen, they’re a long-married couple united more deeply by humorous investigations – and she fits the character effortlessly, gracefully.

But Keaton did have another major rom-com hit in the year 2003 with that Nancy Meyers movie, as a dramatist in love with a older playboy (the star Jack Nicholson, naturally). The result? Her final Oscar nomination, and a entire category of love stories where older women (often portrayed by famous faces, but still!) take charge of their destinies. A key element her passing feels so sudden is that Keaton was still making those movies up until recently, a frequent big-screen star. Now audiences will be pivoting from taking that presence for granted to realizing what an enormous influence she was on the rom-com genre as we know it. Should it be difficult to recall present-day versions of those earlier stars who similarly follow in Keaton’s footsteps, the reason may be it’s rare for a performer of her caliber to devote herself to a category that’s mostly been streaming fodder for a long time.

A Unique Legacy

Ponder: there are 10 living female actors who received at least four best actress nominations. It’s unusual for a single part to begin in a rom-com, not to mention multiple, as was the situation with Diane. {Because her