The recent passing of Diane Keaton has prompted me to seek out her work, both in films I fondly remembered, as well as ones I had never seen. Along the way I became distracted by her natural talent, her intelligence, and that infectious personality which shined through, not only in her performances, but also in her many televised appearances on a variety of talk shows.
Upon watching her, though, I couldn't shake the feeling I'd seen this personality before. And I had. In fact, the whole world had - a generation before Diane Keaton was even born.
Long before Woody Allen had an on screen / off screen leading lady, Charlie Chaplin had one as well. Her name was Edna Purviance, and she starred opposite Chaplin in over 30 films produced between 1915 and 1923.
But the similarities among the two go further than sharing the screen with a popular funnyman of the time. And they begin with their appearance.
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| EDNA PURVIANCE |
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| DIANE KEATON |
Looking at photographs, as well as the films of both actresses, they look eerily similar - almost as if they were mother and daughter. They weren't. But their lives seemed oddly connected as both women would often change the subject when asked about themselves, as if perplexed on the notion that anyone would have an interest in them.
They also shared the demands and scars of image. Diane Keaton openly talked of her struggles with Bulimia, while Edna Purviance's weight strongly fluctuated between each film. Two strong independent women, they both ignored the expectations of society. Purviance married late in life - age 43, but never had children, while Keaton never married but adopted two children after the age of 50.
In comparing their careers, Diane Keaton was more prolific, versatile, and had formal training. She met Woody Allen when they were part of the cast of the Broadway comedy, Play It Again, Sam, whereas Edna Purviance met Chaplin in a coffee shop where the up and coming funnyman offered the non actress a screen test.
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| CHAPLAN AND PURVIANCE |
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| KEATON AND ALLEN |
While Diane Keaton and Woody Allen were more like collaborators on their various film projects, Edna Purviance and Charlie Chaplin worked within the old fashioned model of student and teacher, with both women attaining the same results within the realm of the time periods they each inhabited.
And while Keaton and Purviance excelled in comedy, they both showed their critics a dramatic range with controversial films - Keaton as the teacher of deaf children by day and a bar hopping promiscuous woman by night in Looking for Mister Goodbar, and Purviance as the innocent young woman who becomes the mistress of a wealthy man in A Woman of Paris.
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| EDNA PURVIANCE in A WOMAN OF PARIS |
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| DIANE KEATON in REDS |
In Kevin Brownlow's documentary, Unknown Chaplin, we see glimpses of Edna Purviance's radiant charm through various outtakes. Even without ever hearing her voice, one can't help but be smitten with her carefree playfulness among her castmates, just as we are equally enamored with Diane Keaton in viewing many of her early interviews.
And just as the inexperienced Purviance was thrust into Chaplin's world of knockabout English Music Hall cronies, Keaton, a student of the famed acting teacher Sanford Meisner, found herself in the foreign world of Woody Allen's zany intellectual self depreciation. And both women fit right in, naturally.
No longer lovers of Allen or Chaplin, Diane Keaton and Edna Purviance continued working with the men that made them famous as the two comic director/performers successfully ventured into more mature comedies and dramas.
Unless you're a Chaplin enthusiast, Edna Purviance is virtually forgotten today, while Diane Keaton has bypassed Woody Allen in both popularity, and versatility. Both Allen and Chaplin have credited these two women with the success of their early directing careers proving without a doubt the old saying, "Behind every successful man is a woman."
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