Then Again - Diane Keaton [37]
Most of my creative endeavors were nothing more than glorified basket-weaving, another form of insurance against a relapse with a two-pound box of See’s Candies peanut brittle. I don’t think my artistic solutions to psychological problems were the same as Mom’s collage work, journals, and photography. I was lucky because I was young and had more outlets to help overcome my struggles or, at the very least, live with what Dr. Landau termed “anxiety neurosis.” On the West Coast, Mom was sailing into the wind alone.
Every cultural experience came to me by way of Woody Allen, my boyfriend. He took me to the movies, where we saw Ingmar Bergman’s Persona and Luis Buñuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. On Madison Avenue we looked in the windows of Serge Sabarsky’s gallery of German expressionist paintings. We walked to the Museum of Modern Art and saw the Diane Arbus exhibition curated by John Szarkowski. I took a class in drawing and silk screening. I learned to print my photographs. With Dr. Landau, I examined Then versus Now and Now because of Then. She introduced Freud’s “penis envy.” Feminists claimed it labeled women as failed men. We took to discussing envy. It turned out I had a fair share of green to examine before I could understand many of my emotional shortcomings.
I still longed for a mother’s guidance and found an ideal substitute in Landau. She wasn’t the charmed listener Mom was. We didn’t hang out at the kitchen counter and share laughs. But she made all the difference. There was no hand-holding as she tried to hammer in the futility of distorting fantasy into reality by quietly paying attention to my steady stream of talk.
Landau knew the world was populated with OTHERS, not just Diane Hall of Orange County. She was a great rep for all the people in my life. Her goal was to help me come to terms with my grandiose expectations. Landau’s theory that reality was more exciting than fantasies went in one ear and out the other. Choosing the freedom to be uninteresting never quite worked for me. As much as she tried, and she tried hard, I never found a home in the arms of a man either.
I finally moved out of the 82nd Street studio with its bathtub in the kitchen and found a new apartment at 73rd and Third. Being three thousand miles away from Mom helped me deny any guilt I had over abandoning her. I was in a new business, the business of battling my self-inflicted wounds with activities that kept me away from the toilet down the hall. But more than anything there was …
My Career
In 1971 I was cast in Efrem Zimbalist Jr.’s series The F.B.I. Here’s what I remember. Nothing—except the producers checked my background before I was hired, to make sure I wasn’t a criminal.
I also got a guest-starring role in Mike Connors’s big hit series Mannix. My first shot from the episode named “The Color of Murder” was a two-page monologue. As a gun-toting murderess, I had to scream and yell my way down the middle of a huge warehouse with nothing to hold on to until I broke down and confessed. Terrified, I burst into tears and asked to be let go. “Touch” Connors, as he was affectionately referred to from his old days of playing basketball at UCLA with coach John Wooden, asked everyone to leave the set and walked me through the scene as many times as I needed. I fell in love with him. Not every big star is kind enough to take the time with a frightened young actress. Touch is still hanging in at eighty-six with his bride of more than fifty years, Mary Lou.
In 1972 there was my big break—or so I thought—with the movie of Play It Again, Sam. Susan Anspach, who starred