Diane Keaton - Lets Just Say It Wasnt Pretty

Lets Just Say It Wasnt Pretty is a work of nonfiction.
Some names and identifying details have been changed.

Copyright 2014 by Diane Keaton

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint and division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
R ANDOM H OUSE and the H OUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

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L IBRARY OF C ONGRESS C ATALOGING-IN- P UBLICATION D ATA
Keaton, Diane.
Lets just say it wasnt pretty / Diane Keaton.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-8129-9426-1
eBook ISBN 978-0-8129-9427-8
Signed edition ISBN 978-0-8129-9629-6
1. Keaton, Diane. 2. Motion picture actors and actressesUnited StatesBiography. 3. Body image in women. 4. Beauty, Personal. I. Title.
PN2287.K44A3 2014
791.43028092dc23 2013048959
[B]

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Jacket design: Emily Harwood Blass
Front-jacket photograph: Ruven Afanador

v3.1

Ive always loved independent women, outspoken women, eccentric women, funny women, flawed women. When someone says about a woman, Im sorry, thats just wrong, I tend to think she must be doing something right. Take Diana Vreeland, the legendary editor in chief of Vogue. Vreeland was many things, but a classic beauty wasnt one of them. Her mother called her my ugly little monster. Guess what? That didnt get in her way. Vreeland paraded around with a head of glossy pitch-black hair until the day she died, at age eighty-five. She defied every rule of aging gracefully. She thrived in the big-time world of Beauty, yet was not enslaved by it. Diana conjured a world where youve gotta have style. It helps you get down the stairs. It helps you get up in the morning. Its a way of life. Without it youre nobody.

I respect women who arent afraid to push the envelope, women who are inappropriate, women who do what you arent supposed to. Women like Katharine Hepburn. Didnt she wear pants under a Chairman Mao tunic to the Academy Awards? No gown? No jewels? No stylist? No posing on the red carpet? Outrageous! And what about twenty-seven-year-old Lena Dunham, who has redefined what a star can look like. I think shes one of the most beautiful women on TV. Her HBO series Girls has hit a raw nerve with some reviewers. One reason that Girls is unsettling is that it is an acerbic, deadpan reminder that human nature doesnt change, wrote Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times. As funny and creative as her show may be, wrote Robert Bianco in USA Today, theres little doubt Girls will be too explicit, too New Yorkspecific, and too young-and-female-centric to appeal to everyone. Thats the point: Why try to appeal to everyone?

I have a soft spot for women like Phyllis Diller. Remember her running after the garbage truck as it pulled away from the curb, yelling, Am I too late for the trash? No, said the driver. Jump right in! I admire women like Joan Rivers, even though I cant count how many times shes hauled me before her Fashion Police. Look, its hard not to love a woman who can laugh about the fact that an animated show once featured her as a vagina that had received too much plastic surgery. Joan, Phyllis, and Totie Fields were among the first to openly discuss their multiple cosmetic surgeries. It takes strength to fess up to your imperfections. People have asked me why Ive never had work done. The truth is I respect women who have had work done just as much as I respect those who havent. Were all just trying to get through the day.

In my early twenties I used to torture Woody with my insecurities: Would I ever be cast in a great movie? Would my slightly-but-definitely-noticeable crooked nose keep me from getting work? Looking back, I dont know how Woody put up with me. For a year and a half the only job Id been cast in was the recurring role of a young woman running around in a tracksuit uttering Hour After Hour wont wear off till the day is over. Thats right, no one would hire me, except to sell underarm deodorant. I asked Woody if he thought I was crazy to keep flying to California to audition for films like Anthony Newleys Summertree only to lose out to actresses like Brenda Vaccaro. And even if I landed one of those roles, would I ever have a career? Woody told me I didnt have to worry. Youre funny, he said, and funny is money. I looked at him and thought, Is this guy nuts? Funny women told jokes. I wouldnt know a joke if it hit me in the face. Funny women knew where the punch line came. I was always fumbling for the right thing to say. Funny women like Joan Davis from I Married Joan had a great career playing fall-down clowns with names like Flossy Duff. Funny women were comedic geniuses like Carol Burnett, or Ruth Buzzi of Laugh-In, who made herself look pretty awful with her most inspired character, Gladys Ormphby, an ugly spinster whose hair was pulled into a bun secured by a hairnet knotted in the middle of her forehead. Not exactly what youd call attractive. Joan, Carol, and Ruth took funny to the edge of a cliff and they werent afraid to fall off. Thats when I understood what Woody was talking about. Its why Phyllis Diller worked into her nineties and Joan Rivers is still a force to be reckoned with. Its why I love funny women. They make funny beautiful.

Speaking of fearless and original, what about Lady Gaga, who has worn outfits that look like a chicken nugget and a feather duster? Love that. And Rihanna, the black Madonna, who reinvents her style and image with every album. To me, the most beautiful women are independent women like Angelina Jolie, Anna Magnani, fierce and sassy Jennifer Lawrence, Georgia OKeeffe alone in the desert, Laurie Simmons (Lena Dunhams mother), Cindy Sherman front and center in her photographs, Barbra Streisand with her untouched nose, strong Kathryn Bigelow, defiant Kate Moss, Grace Coddington and her orange hair, Louise Brooks and her black bob, Franoise Hardy, unstoppable Hillary Clinton, brilliant Tina Fey, fearless Joan Didion, and and and and each found her place in the world. Each has her own style, her own voice, her own independence, her own stamp, her own method, her own wrong that shes made right.

Just yesterday Dexter, my eighteen-year-old daughter, found a story online called Top 10 Female Celebrities Who Are Ugly No Matter What Hollywood Says by someone named Valdez_Addiction.

Mom. Mom. Come over here. I ran to the computer and there was a picture of Number One, Angelina Jolie, with this assessment: She looks like Skeletor from He-Man. Sorry Brad, you could have done much better than this stick figure. Valdez_Addiction slammed Number Four, Reese Witherspoon, with this: What can I say about this genetic mistake that you cant already see? Between that chin and that forehead that she finally realized she needed to cover, Im still amazed she even has a career much less being voted beautiful by people magazine. Dexter kept scrolling, and there was the fifth-ugliest female celebrity no matter what Hollywood says, Diane Keaton.