To the surprise of many, PEOPLE magazine has confirmed that Oscar-winning actress Diane Keaton has passed away at the age of 79. An icon of Hollywood since the 1970s, when during the famed era of New Hollywood, Keaton dazzled audiences with countless iconic roles, demonstrating her superb artistry as a performer in the fields of drama and comedy. For the former, she made her mark as Kay Adams in The Godfather saga, where she played the turmoil-ridden wife of Michael Corleone, played by Al Pacino. Later in the 70s, Keaton gave a bracing performance in Looking For Mr. Goodbar, where, as Theresa Dunn, Keaton sketched the mental state and social repression of a schoolteacher who breaks her ordinary routine with a dive into the sexual freedoms ushered in by the previous decade and a half of sweeping social changes.

Keaton’s most famous work, however, is that of her years-long collaborations with the filmmaker, writer, and comedian Woody Allen. Their collaboration dates back before the movies when Keaton auditioned and won by a close margin the role of Linda Christie in Allen’s comic play, Play It Again, Sam, where they portrayed conflicted lovers in difficult social situations and farcical drama that they would reinvent and mold over the next decade. In 1972, the same year that The Godfather was released, Keaton reappeared with Allen in the film adaptation of Play It Again, Sam, which would go on to be the first of seven films they made together (albeit the only one not directed by Allen himself). Keaton’s introduction to Allen’s films marked a turnover from Allen’s previous muse, his wife Louise Lasser. With Sleeper, a sci-fi comedy tribute to the silent comedian stars of Buster Chaplin, Buster Keaton (a fellow Keaton comedian), and Harold Lloyd, and Love And Death, a riff on the Russian tomes of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, Keaton’s presence inspired a new electricity to the way Allen’s words and scenarios were realized, with Keaton more than matching Allen line for line, and beat for beat.

Keaton’s work with Allen led to her winning the Oscar for Best Actress for the eponymous role of Annie Hall, also the Best Picture winner of that year. Following Annie Hall, Keaton starred in Allen’s Interiors, sans Allen the actor, and aiding his transition into a director of introspective dramas, finally culminating in his arguably most acclaimed film, Manhattan, where the character dynamics the two established 10 years prior with Sam reach their apex in Allen’s most thorny and aching movie yet. Manhattan would also mark the last of the Keaton and Allen partnership for more than a decade.

Though only winning the Oscar once, Keaton would be nominated three more times for her portrayals in Reds, Marvin’s Room and Something’s Gotta Give. Keaton showcased the potential that great actresses can have when they are given the opportunity past very early youth.

In her mid-to-late career, Keaton found steady work as a consummately reliable scene partner for a variety of films as can be seen in the brutal divorce drama Shoot The Moon with Albert Finney, the biopic Mrs. Soffel with Mel Gibson and directed by the acclaimed Australian auteur Gillian Armstrong, and perhaps one of her most iconic roles, as Nina Banks, the wife of Steve Martin in the 90s remake duology Father Of The Bride. Most notably, the 1990s also marked Keaton’s first work as a physical performer with Woody Allen (excluding a small cameo in Radio Days) in the appropriately titled mystery film Manhattan Murder Mystery. At the same time, Keaton found avenues to spread her wings behind the camera as a director proper. At this time, Keaton would direct two theatrical fiction films (Unstrung Heroes and Hanging Up, the latter featuring Keaton directing the final performance of actor Walter Matthau), a documentary and a TV movie. Keaton would also direct an episode of the iconic TV series Twin Peaks, getting the chance to handle some of the show’s late-period memorable moments, such as the resolution to the civil war delusions of character Ben Horne.

In the 21st century, Keaton ended her career with notable appearances as the voice of Dory’s mother in Finding Dory, the all-star actress assemblage of the Book Club series (with fellow legendary actresses of her era, Jane Fonda, Mary Steenburgen, and Candice Bergen) and in Paolo Sorrentino and HBO’s TV miniseries The Young Pope. Like her film work, since the beginning, Keaton’s presence was something to remark on here, and it will be a shame that no new contributions from her to the art world will be made again.