DIANE Keaton battled a number of health issues before her tragic death at the age of 79.
The Godfather and Annie Hall actress overcame skin cancer and an eating disorder as she shot to fame as one of Hollywood's brightest stars.


Keaton's death was confirmed by a family spokesperson on Saturday who said she died in California.
The actress was nominated for a host of top awards during her career on the silver screen which lasted for over five decades.
Keaton's starring role saw her win the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role for the 1978 hit Annie Hall.
She also boasted three other Academy Award nominees in the same category across three separate decades.
But before she became a household name across the globe, Keaton had to overcome several health issues back home in Los Angeles.
At the age of 21, she was diagnosed with skin cancer.
Doctors told the then budding young actress she had basal-cell carcinoma – the most common type of cancer.
She fought off the disease but again suffered with another form of cancer later in life in 2011.
Speaking to the Los Angeles Times in 2015, Keaton said she had a recurrence of squamous cell carcinoma – another type of skin cancer – in her cheek that required her to have a number of surgeries.
She also added that her family have a long history of skin cancer so she was always vigilant of any symptoms.
The cancerous cells were all removed following the operations with Keaton believed to have been living a healthy and happy life in the years before her death.
Her family are yet to disclose what her cause of the death was.
Keaton was also open about her struggles with bulimia throughout her life.
Back in 1968, the director of Hair on Broadway offered Keaton the lead role if she could lose some weight.
Reminiscing on her life with PEOPLE, Keaton recalled shedding "a lot of weight" at the time.
She landed the role but in an effort to please the director continued to shed as much weight as possible.
Keaton recalled: "People were nice enough, but I felt like an outsider.
"I had a problem — it was sick and creepy. Bulimia takes a lot of time out of your day.


"I became a master at hiding. Hiding any evidence – how do you make sure no one knows?
"You live a lifestyle that is very strange. You're living a lie."
Her eating disorder then worsened as Keaton admitted to eating up to 20,000 calories a day at the peak of her bulimia struggle.
Breaking down her diet on The Dr Oz Show, Keaton said she would eat "a bucket of fried chicken, several orders of fries with blue cheese and ketchup, a couple of TV dinners, a quarter of soda, pounds of candy, a whole cake, and three banana cream pies".
She would later be forced to starve herself to lose weight if she wanted to land roles amid pressure to be skinny in Hollywood.
But in 2014, Keaton called her bulimia battle "the lowest point in [her] life".
She eventually recovered after several years of suffering after taking up therapy.
Speaking with Ellen DeGeneres about her journey, Keaton said: "I talked. I spoke it out. I said my thoughts and feelings.
"And I feel like, once you do that, you own it as opposed to, if you don't talk about it, it becomes very abstract.
"To keep secrets doesn't help you at all.
"I think I'm a sister to all the rest of the women – and I'm sure men as well – who have had some kind of eating disorder, and I'm a part of the team."
Keaton is survived by her two children Dexter, 29, and Duke Keaton, 25.
What are the most common eating disorders?
EATING disorders are serious mental illnesses that can affect anyone.
People with eating disorders use disordered eating behaviour as a way to cope with difficult situations or feelings.
This can include limiting the amount of food eaten, eating very large quantities of food at once, getting rid of food eaten through unhealthy means (e.g. making themselves sick, misusing laxatives, fasting, or excessive exercise), or a combination of these behaviours.
- Anorexia nervosa – it involves limiting how much you eat, doing lots of exercise, make yourself sick, or misusing laxatives to get rid of food eaten
- Bulimia nervosa – sufferers tend to be caught in a cycle of eating large quantities of food (bingeing) and then trying to compensate by vomiting, taking laxatives or diuretics, fasting, or exercising excessively (called purging)
- Binge eating disorder – eating large portions of food without feeling like you're control of what you're doing
If you think you or your child have an eating disorder, you should see a doctor as soon as possible.
Charities can also offer help and advice.
In the UK, Beat, Talk ED and Health for Teens are good places to start.

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