Diane Keaton appeared in Rod Serling’s follow-up The Twilight Zone before her rise to fame

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Beloved actress Diane Keaton He passed away on Saturday, October 11at the age of 79 years. Throughout her life, she starred in more than 50 films and appeared in countless television shows, one of those early pre-breakout performances coming on the NBC series “Night Gallery.”

Although the horror anthology show “Night Gallery” wasn’t as popular as creator Rod Serling’s previous show, “The Twilight Zone,” both shows had an interesting knack for highlighting the talents of young, soon-to-be stars. “The Twilight Zone” provided opportunities for young actors Like Robert Duvall and Robert Redford To prove themselves to a national audience, a few years later, “Night Gallery” gave Keaton the same opportunity.

Keaton, who was in her early 20s, starred in the show’s second episode ever in the story “Room with a View.” The story begins as a kind of homage to “Rear Window,” with Keaton’s character (Nurse Frances Nevins) caring for a bedridden man who spends his time staring out the window with binoculars. But while James Stewart’s character in Rear Window has a loving girlfriend played by Grace Kelly to take care of him, Joseph Wiseman’s character, Mr. Bowman, has only a vain, uncaring wife who is clearly having an affair.

Young Keaton is the most prominent character in this story. Her character is to be sweet, nervous and naive, but with a dark edge that Mr. Bowman can exploit in his quest for revenge on his unfaithful wife. Keaton only has a few minutes of screen time (because the story itself is under 10 minutes), but in the story’s closing moments, we feel like we’ve known her for longer.

Newspaper TV previews at the time Keaton episode announced to be “much better than last week’s editorial” and named “A Room With a View” the episode’s best story. An uncredited television critic wrote: “Joseph Weisman is perfectly portrayed as an invalid (sic) and Diane Keaton is his attractive nurse.”

Although Keaton’s performance showed all the signs that he would soon be a hit, this wasn’t the performance that helped her land the “Godfather” role that turned her into a household name. The Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola explains in this behind-the-scenes bonus featurette for The Godfather DVD of the movie It was Keaton’s performance in “Lovers and Other Strangers” that caught his attention. In this iconic 1970 film, which was released in theaters four months before Keaton’s “Night Gallery” episode, Keaton She managed to shine even in a large ensemble cast.

Although her performance in Night Gallery wasn’t Keaton’s breakout role, it certainly didn’t hurt her chances either. It was Keaton’s reputation for playing eccentric characters that seemed to catch Coppola’s attention, and her character in “Night Gallery” was certainly eccentric.

“I still don’t understand why he cast me in ‘The Godfather,’” Keaton said he said in a 1997 interview. “At that point in my life, people looked at me as a bit of a weirdo. I was like a weird actress, and he chose me for this role. He was very serious.” But although her early roles may seem like a departure from her character in The Godfather, the shift in character type helped establish Keaton as an actress with a wide range. She could star in romantic comedies like “Annie Hall,” serious historical dramas like “Reds,” or anything in between.