“Their affair would last beyond Coppola’s poorly received The Godfather Part III, released in 1990, and Keaton later admitted her former co-star was the one who got away.”, — write: www.dailymail.co.uk
The late actress, who passed away on Saturday aged 79, embarked on a stop-start relationship with Pacino after playing his long-suffering wife in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 blockbuster The Godfather.
The affair would last beyond Coppola’s poorly received The Godfather Part III, released in 1990, and Keaton later admitted her former co-star was the one who got away.
‘I didn’t even want him to propose,’ she told The Times of their relationship in 2017. ‘I just thought maybe he would marry me, eventually. I thought, “don’t even propose – let’s just do it.”
‘But that never happened, and that is a blessing for both of us. It would have been a nightmare for him.’
She added ‘We’re very eccentric, he needed a woman that was going to take care of him, I needed a man who would take care of me.
‘It was just very important that we left each other alone, said goodbye. But it wasn’t my choice.’
Keaton and Pacino won accolades for their respective roles as Kay Adams and mafia don Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy.
Neither would marry, and Pacino later admitted regretting his decision to walk away from his screen wife.
‘Looking back, Al admits the love of his life was Diane who he’s always called, “an amazing woman”,’ a friend of the actor told the Daily Mail.
‘I know he will forever regret he didn’t make his move when he had the chance. For years after he and Diane split, Al used to say, “if it’s meant to be, it’s never too late for a do-over”. But sadly, now it is.’
The source said while Pacino romanced a string of women, his four children have always been the most important thing in his life.
‘Al adores all his kids,’ the source added. ‘And although he preferred living in New York, he also purchased a home in Los Angeles just so he could spend more time on the West Coast with his children who lived there.
‘Though he and Diane both lived in Beverly Hills, only a few miles from each other for years, they never spoke.
‘I once asked him why, and he told me, “There’s no need to talk with each other. We said everything that needed to be said at the time”.’
No cause of death has been announced but Keaton, who was regularly seen out and about in LA, disappeared from the site a few months ago.
One neighbor told the Daily Mail he would regularly see her walking her dog Emma.
‘But I hadn’t seen her in months,’ the neighbor said. ‘Now I wonder if she may have been ill for a while.’
The late actress also used to say marriage was never something high on her bucket list.
‘Diane’s parents were together, but her father was always away on business,’ said another source.
‘So, he might as well not have been there at all. She loved her mother, who managed the home and raised her four children on her own, and Diane admired her strength and independence.’
She also shared a close relationship with Woody Allen for two decades, but it wasn’t the same kind of relationship she shared with Pacino.
‘There was something about Al that reminded her of a lost orphan in need of love,’ shared the source. ‘And she felt sure he would never try and take her independence, because he needed her to be strong.
‘Diane could definitely have seen herself marrying Al, and them having kids together. But after years of on and off romance, she felt the time to marry was now or never.
‘And she eventually told him: “Marry me or else!”‘
The source added: ‘To her surprise, he walked away, insisting no woman was going to push him into doing something he wasn’t ready to do. And true to his word, he moved on.’