Diane Keaton Battled Bulimia While Dating Woody Allen
In her new autobiography, Then Again, actress Diane Keaton has revealed that she was suffering from the crippling eating disorder bulimia while playing some of the funniest roles of her career.
In 1968, after learning she needed to lose 10 pounds to land a part in the original Broadway production of “Hair,” Keaton wrote, she would consume “barely imaginable quantities of food” that she later would force herself to throw up.
Dinner, she described, was “a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, several orders of chips with blue cheese and ketchup, a couple of TV dinners, chocolate-covered almonds, a large bottle of 7Up, a pound of peanut brittle, M&Ms, mango juice, one Sara Lee pound cake, and three frozen banana-cream pies.”
Keaton, now 65, also recalled in the memoir that 1968 was the year she started to become romantically involved with Woody Allen, who starred alongside her in the stage comedy “Play It Again, Sam” and later in the film “Annie Hall” – which he also directed. Diane was 22 at the time.
Check out Keaton and Allen in a scene from Annie Hall below:
According to Keaton, Woody Allen never suspected anything was wrong with Diane, although at one point, seeing how insecure she appeared, he sent her to see a psychoanalyst, whom she saw daily for 18 months.
“Woody didn’t have a clue what I was up to in the privacy of his bathrooms. He did marvel at my remarkable appetite, saying I could really ‘pack it in.’ Ever vigilant and always on the lookout, I made sure he never caught me.”
At 25, she suddenly began eating normally again.
After her split from Woody in 1975, Diane would go on to date actors Al Pacino and Warren Beatty, but eventually gave up on relationships in 2001, insisting she was happy to be single, adopting daughter Dexter, 15, and son Duke, 10.
Of motherhood, Keaton said: “I’m sorry, but it’s better than any of your fantasies about love. It is love. That’s the best thing.”
To pick up a copy of Diane Keaton’s autobiography Then Again, head over to Amazon.
via OTRC
