I was driving into Los Angeles last Saturday, when Annie, my wife of decades, called and said she had some sad news. I don’t know why, but there was something in her voice and I said, “Wait, I’ll pull off to the side of the road.”
She gave me a moment before saying that Diane Keaton, the love of my youth, had died. Oh god, what a hit. She was 79, I’m older, so how ever could that be?
Though more than a half century back, the memories are sharp, intensely etched as only young love is. Diane was 19, I was 22.
We had met in 1965 when we were first-year acting students at the Neighborhood Playhouse. Diane was in New York City for the first time, an exotic creature from Orange County, Calif., who was still Diane Hall. She was staying at a strictly-women’s boarding house called The Rehearsal Club on West 53rd Street and I had scored my first New York apartment, living on my own. I was a year out of college and back in the city and had landed a waiter’s gig at TGI Fridays on 1st Avenue. If I recall right, Diane had a job as a hatcheck girl somewhere.
Whatever our differences — considerable ones — it was lightning in a bottle, at least for the first year. Diane said I was her first boyfriend and we floated into couple-hood, feeling that sense of forever.
For me, Diane was my second girlfriend. My first relationship from college had ended rather painfully, so I wasn’t looking for a new one. But Diane’s wild bright blush and spirit won the day. There was that musical laugh which bubbled up daily, and her own vernacular — almost her own private vocabulary. She was prone to uttering La-di-da ! when at a loss for words, or just whenever. Of course, she was tall and slender and wore those one-of-a-kind outfits and accessories never to be found in Bloomingdales. She collected duds from I-know-not-where, gliding through the city in long strides, wearing big clunky shoes, sometimes skipping and twirling down the sidewalks. I loved it when she would find a bench and we would flop down, rest and spill our heart’s ambitions.
Diane and I were in different acting classes at the Playhouse, but everyone studied with the formidable Sanford Meisner, a founding member of The Group Theatre. Meisner trained actors by stripping them down and then building them up to “live truthfully from moment to moment under imaginary circumstances.” Think Marine Corps.
To boot, we had to be in tip-top shape. Everyone took dance classes with Pearl Lang, the great Martha Graham soloist, and Matt Maddox the superstar jazz dancer. I enjoyed dancing but mine was a freeform deal and did not require leotard tights to be tucked into my behind the way Matt wore his. When I attempted to do my jetes across the floor everyone burst out laughing; that was disruptive, so Matt dispatched me to the sidelines to play the bongo drums for class.
Diane, however, was a wonderfully fluid dancer. I admired her jetés, and she said she fell for my bongo playing. Diane also sang like an angel – sweetly infused with a unique soulfulness. Eyes brimming with feeling, she shuttled between heartbreak and joy, like there wasn’t a big difference between the two.
We spent hours walking in Central Park — back and forth to my apartment on 87th and West End, stopping often at the Central Park Zoo to gawk at the monkeys before grabbing a couple of hot dogs from a vendor and sitting around the boathouse by the pond, endlessly talking plays, class, the actors and directors we adored.
My place was on the first floor of an old brownstone — actually just below the first floor. The bedroom window was level with the sidewalk, so I’d keep the shade down to avoid seeing the occasional dog pee against the pane. Not the stuff of rendezvous but, for us, West Side Shangri-La.
We loved going to Fellini movies at the Thalia on 95th Street and catching all the Kurosawa movies at The New Yorker on West 88th and Broadway. We’d smoke too many Marlboros, got high on pot and just plain fooled around. I took Diane over to meet my best friend Chuck Hirsch who ran the Garrick Cinema on Bleecker Street in the Village. Chuck, who later produced the first Brian de Palma films, cast Diane in a movie he wrote and directed. It had to be her very first film. It was no “Annie Hall” — and lord knows what became of it. But yes, she lit up the screen.
When we realized we were serious, I took her over to my parents’ new apartment on 81st Street off Park. I’ll mention in passing, we were of different faiths — no big deal to us but a bigger deal in the mid-’60s. As you likely guessed, I’m a New York Jew, and an early tell of what was to come (no disrespect to Woody Allen).
I remember there was a lot of tears and hurt at the very end maybe because we were her first love affair. No denying it was a searing coming-of-age romance with glorious NYC as our stage.
So Diane met my demure, perfectly coiffed mother and they hit it off. Imagine that! I’m sure my mother had no idea of what to make of Diane, who was slightly embarrassed (as usual), somewhat awkward, funny and disarming with the occasional La-di-da! It was a good visit and mercifully short.
That having gone well, I introduced her to my father. I have no idea why, but we met at Chock Full of Nuts near Bloomingdale’s. That, too, went swimmingly well. La-di-da, she said afterwards.
We went around the city, visiting my other close friends, Jim McBride, who became a renowned film director after his debut film, “David Holtzman’s Diary,” and who was blushingly charmed by her. As was Jack Baran, who was Jim’s A.D., when we stopped by his Grove Street pad. Jack was so bowled over, he couldn’t stop talking, which made us both giggle even more.
Our time together lasted less than two years. I don’t really remember why we broke up, but it was hard and too long. One stress was we both had to score Equity cards and mine meant doing a play out of town.
I remember there was a lot of tears and hurt at the very end maybe because we were her first love affair. No denying it was a searing coming-of-age romance with glorious NYC as our stage.
Diane stayed on for the second year at the Neighborhood Playhouse and I fell under the spell of another acting maestro, Wynn Handman, who would always say, “Ground yourself in reality, then throw yourself into the sea of inspiration.” Words we tried to live by.
Decades later, our paths crossed again, in the Russian Tea Room on 57th Street, no less.
My wife Annie, her mother Ruth and I were having dinner when Annie glimpsed Diane across the restaurant. I looked over and saw Diane slowly stand up, her eyes lazered on me. Oh my, it was Diane. My heart beat a bit too quickly. It was so many years ago, but still … she was walking over … and there she was!
“Bobby … Bobby Lesser,” she exclaimed. “Oh my god you haven’t changed a bit, you were so good looking! How are you?”
The shoe was now on the other foot. Now I was blushing and knocked my chicken kyiv to the floor as I stood up to greet her. I introduced her to Annie and her mom and started to blabber away – both of us smiling, laughing and talking — a few tears — all at the same time.
Well, la-di-da, la-di-da Diane … Bless your heart forevermore.
Robert Lesser began his career at the Lincoln Center Rep, on to The Public Theater, APA, and was directed by Alan Arkin in “The Soft Touch” and in “Rubbers” on Broadway. He was in original production of Sam Shepard’s “Geography of a Horse Dreamer” and has appeared in dozens of films including “Hester Street,” “Die Hard” and “The Big Easy.”
