Woody Allen fell in love with Diane Keaton as soon as he set eyes on her, but took a week to pluck up the courage to speak to the woman whose stellar career he would help to turbo charge.

He has now paid a heartfelt tribute to his favorite actress and former partner, whose death was announced at the weekend.

"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," 89-year-old Allen wrote in a long tribute in The Free Press to Keaton, whose death was announced Saturday. She was 79.

"For the first week of rehearsal we never spoke a word to one another," he said of his time acting alongside her in the 1972 film "Play It Again, Sam."

"She was shy, I was shy, and with two shy people things can get pretty dull. Finall

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