When an actor we’ve always loved dies, the first thing we think is, “This is incomprehensible.” Actors, for those of us who have measured our lives in movies, aren’t just performers who have given us joy. They’re people who have walked along with us year by year; we match stride with them without even being aware of it. We measure the changes in them—the laugh lines that weren’t there the year before, the slightly rounded tummy that most women are forced to reckon with sometime in their fifties—more observantly than we register similar shifts in ourselves. To watch ourselves age is not much fun, but to watch them age is the privilege of a lifetime.

That’s how it was with Diane Keaton , who died on Oct. 11 at age 79. Keaton wasn't just a gifted performer; she also proved to be a fine d

See Full Page