Quote of the Day (Diane Keaton, on Her Transformative Acting Moment)

“There was no discussion with my parents on the night I sang ‘Mata Hari’ in our Santa Ana High School production of the musical Little Mary Sunshine. Under the direction of our drama teacher, Mr. Robert Leasing, the production was worthy of Broadway—at least I thought so. I was Nancy Twinkle, the second lead, who loves to flirt with men. In my big number, ‘Mata Hari,’ I ran around the stage singing about the famous double agent ‘who would spy and get her data by doing this and that-a,’ ending with a grand finale featuring me sliding down a rope into the orchestra pit. That was when I heard the explosion. It came from the audience. It was applause. When Mom and Dad found me backstage, their faces were beaming. Dad had tears in his eyes. I’d never seen him so excited…. I could tell he was startled by his awkward daughter—the one who’d flunked algebra, smashed into his new Ford station wagon with the old Buick station wagon, and spent a half hour in the bathroom using up a whole can of Helene Curtis hairspray. For one thrilling moment, I was his Seabiscuit, Audrey Hepburn, and Wonder Woman rolled into one. I was his heroine.”—Academy Award-winning actress Diane Keaton (1946-2025), Then Again (2011)

Why did the passing of Diane Keaton over the weekend sadden me the way it did? It shouldn’t have. At age 79, she was at the leading edge of the baby boom, the demographic to which I belong—one that, even among friends and relatives, never mind celebrities, has faced mortality, leaving those of us left behind pondering the losses.

In her memoir Then Again, Keaton herself reflected with rueful irony on the famous people she met whose aging surprised her, notably Audrey Hepburn at the 1977 Academy Awards: “Backstage, I pretended to listen to her words, but in truth I couldn’t get my mind off age and what it does to a person.”

Maybe I was so stunned by the news of Keaton’s death—and why she was, too, by seeing Hepburn in person, two decades after she burst onto the screen—because of the nature of her medium.

If movie actors are lucky and they don’t mind transitioning into character roles, they can continue to work even after gray hairs and wrinkles become impossible to ignore. Yet it remains the case that, unlike the stage, film preserves their early appearances, when they are young, vibrant and luminous.

Maybe that’s why, for today’s “Quote of the Day,” I decided to concentrate not on Keaton’s thoughts on growing older, but on her early days—even before she was a professional.

Her “Eureka” moment in high school, I think, epitomizes what convinces so many actors to pursue this as a calling, no matter how many discouraging experiences they may subsequently have. It’s the same kind of thunderstruck realization that animates the finest show-business memoir I know, playwright Moss Hart’s Act One.

In Keaton’s case, the applause she heard from an audience enabled her to triumph over her awkwardness by incorporating it into her persona and making it endearing, the way she would more than a decade later as Annie Hall—and inspire a moment of pride in her family that would only increase with the years.

Quote of the Day (Filmmaker Richard Linklater, on ‘Ourselves at Different Times in Our Lives’)

“I’m passionate about more things in the world. I care about more things, and that serves me. The most fascinating relationship we all have is to ourselves at different times in our lives. You look back, and it’s like, I’m not as passionate as I was at 25. Thank God. That person was very insecure, very unkind. You’re better than that now. Hopefully.”—Screenwriter-director Richard Linklater, 63, quoted by David Marchese, “The Interview: Richard Linklater Is Glad He’s Not His Younger Self,” The New York Times Magazine, June 9, 2024

The image accompanying this post, showing Richard Linklater after the press conference for hid film Before Midnight, was taken Feb. 11, 2013 by Siebbi.

Quote of the Day (G. K. Chesterton, on Autumn, ‘When All the Leaves Are Gold’)

“In youth I sought the golden flower
Hidden in wood or wold,
But I am come to autumn,
When all the leaves are gold.”—English man of letters G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), “Gold Leaves,” from The Wild Knight and Other Poems (1900)

Quote of the Day (Steve Martin, on ‘The Memory Problems of Advancing Age’)

“There are several theories to explain the memory problems of advancing age. One is that the brain is full: it simply has too much data to compute. This is easy to understand if we realize that the name of your third grade teacher is still occupying space, not to mention the lyrics to ‘Volare.’ One solution for older men is to take all the superfluous data swirling around in the brain and download it into the newly large stomach, where there is plenty of room. This frees the brain to house more relevant information, like the particularly troublesome ‘days of the week.’"—Comic actor-writer  Steve Martin, “Changes in the Memory After Fifty,“ in Fierce Pajamas: An Anthology of Humor Writing from “The New Yorker,” edited by David Remnick and Henry Finder (2001)

None of this has ever happened to me. Nope. Can’t say it has. Nosirreebob!!!!

(Photo of Steve Martin taken by David Shankbone at the premiere of Baby Mama in New York City at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, Apr. 23, 2008.)

 

Quote of the Day (Jo Ellison, on Madonna and Other Aging Celebrities)

“None of us will be spared from eventual obsolescence, but while most of us only learn the extent of our irrelevance when we realise we are mentally incapable of programming the Sky box, or have become the last refusenik to subscribe to the office's new ‘collaboration hub,’ it's a far bleaker world for creatives who suffer the ignominy of age while simultaneously having fame wrested from their fingertips by younger models.”—Jo Ellison, on Madonna and other aging celebrities, in “Trending: Have You Hit the Age of Irrelevance?” The Financial Times, June 15-16, 2019

John Wayne was over 60 when he wore an eyepatch for his Oscar-winning role as Sheriff Rooster Cogburn in True Grit. I'm not sure why Madonna's wearing one at roughly the same age, except maybe to do what she's always done: acted unconventionally.

If she wanted another hit, she evidently got it, as her latest collection of tunes, Madame X (yes, you can see that letter) ranks #1 on the Billboard chart. But the musician who ranks #2, Bruce Springsteen, is almost 10 years older, and he didn't need any eyewear.

(Photo of Madonna taken by MTV International during the world premiere of her music video "Medellin" on MTV, Apr. 24, 2019.)

Song Lyric of the Day (Janis Ian, on Life in Winter)

“In the winter

Extra blankets for the cold

Fix the heater, getting old.”—American singer-songwriter Janis Ian, “In the Winter,” from her Between the Lines LP (1975)

Ms. Ian was only 24 when she penned these lines about sudden life changes after a marital breakup, ending with the crushing lines, “I’ll live alone forever/Not together now.” What might she think—how might she sing these lines—now that she’s 68 years old?

Tweet of the Day (Comic Robin McCauley, on Parties and Aging)

“You know you're getting old when you're more worried about what time the party ends than when it starts.”— Robin McCauley, tweet of March 6, 2013

Obviously, she never attended a St. Cecilia High School reunion!!!