Starting with the film Annie Hall to the movie Something’s Gotta Give: the actress Diane Keaton Emerged as the Definitive Comedy Queen.

Numerous great female actors have appeared in romantic comedies. Typically, if they want to win an Oscar, they have to reach for dramatic parts. Diane Keaton, whose recent passing occurred, took an opposite path and pulled it off with disarmingly natural. Her debut significant performance was in The Godfather, about as serious an American masterpiece as ever created. But that same year, she revisited the character of Linda, the focus of an awkward lead’s admiration, in a movie version of the theatrical production Play It Again, Sam. She persistently switched intense dramas with romantic comedies during the 1970s, and the comedies that earned her the Academy Award for outstanding actress, changing the genre permanently.

The Academy Award Part

The award was for the film Annie Hall, written and directed by Woody Allen, with Keaton portraying Annie, a component of the couple’s failed relationship. The director and star were once romantically involved before production, and continued as pals throughout her life; in interviews, Keaton had characterized Annie as a dream iteration of herself, as seen by Allen. It might be simple, then, to believe her portrayal required little effort. But there’s too much range in her acting, both between her Godfather performance and her comedic collaborations and inside Annie Hall alone, to underestimate her talent with romantic comedy as simply turning on the charm – though she was, of course, incredibly appealing.

Shifting Genres

Annie Hall famously served as Allen’s transition between more gag-based broad comedies and a more naturalistic style. As such, it has numerous jokes, dreamlike moments, and a loose collage of a relationship memoir alongside sharp observations into a ill-fated romance. Keaton, similarly, oversaw a change in American rom-coms, portraying neither the fast-talking screwball type or the bombshell ditz popularized in the 1950s. Rather, she fuses and merges elements from each to forge a fresh approach that feels modern even now, cutting her confidence short with her own false-start hesitations.

Observe, for instance the scene where Annie and Alvy Singer first connect after a match of tennis, awkwardly exchanging proposals for a ride (despite the fact that only one of them has a car). The banter is fast, but zig-zags around unpredictably, with Keaton soloing around her own discomfort before ending up stuck of “la di da”, a expression that captures her nervous whimsy. The movie physicalizes that feeling in the subsequent moment, as she has indifferent conversation while operating the car carelessly through New York roads. Afterward, she finds her footing singing It Had to Be You in a nightclub.

Dimensionality and Independence

This is not evidence of Annie acting erratic. Throughout the movie, there’s a dimensionality to her playful craziness – her post-hippie openness to experiment with substances, her anxiety about sea creatures and insects, her refusal to be manipulated by Alvy’s attempts to turn her into someone outwardly grave (in his view, that signifies preoccupied with mortality). At first, Annie could appear like an odd character to win an Oscar; she is the love interest in a film told from a male perspective, and the central couple’s arc fails to result in adequate growth to suit each other. However, she transforms, in manners visible and hidden. She simply fails to turn into a better match for Alvy. Many subsequent love stories stole the superficial stuff – nervous habits, eccentric styles – failing to replicate Annie’s ultimate independence.

Lasting Influence and Later Roles

Perhaps Keaton felt cautious of that pattern. After her working relationship with Allen ended, she stepped away from romantic comedies; her movie Baby Boom is essentially her sole entry from the entirety of the 1980s. Yet while she was gone, the film Annie Hall, the persona even more than the free-form film, served as a blueprint for the category. Meg Ryan, for example, owes most of her rom-com career to Diane’s talent to embody brains and whimsy at once. This cast Keaton as like a timeless love story icon even as she was actually playing matrimonial parts (be it joyfully, as in Father of the Bride, or less so, as in that ensemble comedy) and/or parental figures (see The Family Stone or Because I Said So) than single gals falling in love. Even in her reunion with Allen, they’re a seasoned spouses drawn nearer by humorous investigations – and she fits the character effortlessly, gracefully.

But Keaton did have another major rom-com hit in 2003 with the film Something’s Gotta Give, as a writer in love with a man who dates younger women (Jack Nicholson, naturally). The outcome? Her last Academy Award nod, and a complete niche of romances where senior actresses (often portrayed by famous faces, but still!) reclaim their love lives. Part of the reason her death seems like such a shock is that she kept producing these stories just last year, a frequent big-screen star. Now fans are turning from taking that presence for granted to understanding the huge impact she was on the rom-com genre as it is recognized. If it’s harder to think of present-day versions of those earlier stars who similarly follow in Keaton’s footsteps, that’s likely since it’s seldom for a star of her talent to devote herself to a genre that’s mostly been streaming fodder for a while now.

An Exceptional Impact

Reflect: there are 10 living female actors who earned several Oscar nods. It’s rare for one of those roles to begin in a rom-com, let alone half of them, as was the example of Keaton. {Because her