The crackle of static on a routine 911 dispatch audio has pierced the veil of Hollywood’s glamour, exposing the raw vulnerability of one of its most enigmatic icons. Diane Keaton, the Oscar-winning actress whose “la-dee-da” whimsy masked a lifetime of quiet battles, spent her final moments as a “person down” in the sun-drenched confines of her Pacific Palisades home. The chilling recording, obtained by TMZ and released Sunday, captures the terse urgency of emergency responders racing to her address at 8:08 a.m. on October 11: “Rescue 19, person down.” Paramedics from the Los Angeles Fire Department arrived swiftly, transporting the 79-year-old to a nearby hospital, where she succumbed shortly after. No official cause of death has been disclosed—Keaton’s family, in a statement echoing her lifelong preference for privacy, has requested space to grieve—but the audio, coupled with heartbreaking revelations from close friends, paints a portrait of a woman whose indomitable spirit flickered out in sudden, unforeseen darkness.

In the days leading up to that fateful call, Keaton had become a ghost of her former self, according to those who saw her last. Carole Bayer Sager, the Grammy-winning songwriter and longtime confidante who co-wrote Keaton’s poignant holiday single “First Christmas” in 2024, recounted a visit just two or three weeks prior that left her stunned. “I saw her two or three weeks ago, and she was very thin,” Sager told People magazine, her voice laced with the shock of hindsight. “She had lost much weight, and it was noticeable. She seemed frail, but she was still cracking jokes, still that Diane—making everything feel lighter.” Sager, 81, who shared a black-and-white portrait of Keaton on Instagram with the caption “My forever friend. I will miss you so much. Be at peace now. I love you with all my heart,” described a woman retreating into solitude. “She wasn’t complaining, never one to burden others. But looking back, it was clear something was shifting.”

That “something” was a health decline so abrupt it blindsided even her inner circle. “She declined very suddenly, which was heartbreaking for everyone who loved her,” another friend confided to the outlet. “It was so unexpected, especially for someone with such strength and spirit.” Keaton, who had always been a picture of eccentric vitality—striding through Beverly Hills in her signature oversized menswear, golden retriever Reggie in tow—had withdrawn from the public eye in recent months. Her last Instagram post, on National Pet Day April 11, showed her beaming beside Reggie, captioned “Proof our pets have great taste too!” It was a snapshot of joy, but insiders now see it as a farewell in disguise. Dog walks, once a daily ritual that fueled her social media with snaps of sunsets and silly poses, grew sporadic. Neighbors in Pacific Palisades whispered of fewer glimpses of the actress tinkering in her garden or restoring yet another historic door—a passion that birthed books like The House That Pinterest Built (2018).

Compounding the mystery was Keaton’s decision in March to list her “dream home”—a sprawling 1920s Spanish Revival estate she had poured eight years and untold passion into renovating—for $10.5 million. The property, perched on a bluff overlooking the Pacific, was more than a residence; it was a canvas for her architectural obsessions, featured in her 2022 memoir The House That Jill Built. “This is where I’ll die,” she had quipped in interviews, eyes twinkling behind her trademark aviators. Yet the listing, handled discreetly through a Beverly Hills broker, shocked friends. “Diane swore she’d never leave that place—it was her sanctuary,” the friend told People. “Selling it felt like she was tying up loose ends. We didn’t connect the dots then, but now… it hurts.” The home, with its vaulted ceilings, vintage tiles, and ocean views that inspired countless sketches, remains unsold, a silent monument to a life curated with meticulous care.

Keaton’s final hours unfolded in the quiet intimacy she cherished. Her adopted son Duke, 24, and daughter Dexter, 30—children she welcomed into her life as a single mother in 1995 and 2001, respectively—were by her side when the crisis struck. Duke, a budding filmmaker with his mother’s wry humor, was spotted leaving the home later that day, his face etched with grief but bearing a small tribute: a vintage Annie Hall poster tucked under his arm. “Mom taught me to find the funny in the fall,” he posted on Instagram, a single line that captured her ethos. Dexter, more private like her mother, has yet to speak publicly, but sources say the siblings, along with a handful of loyal staff, formed the tight cocoon around Keaton in her waning days. No dramatic scene preceded the 911 call—just a morning like any other, shattered by collapse. “It was peaceful in its way,” the friend added. “She went quietly, on her terms.”

The suddenness of it all has fueled speculation, though Keaton’s family urges restraint. No illness had been announced, and her last red-carpet appearance—in a tailored black suit at the Ralph Lauren Spring 2024 show in September—showed no overt signs of distress. Yet, piecing together her history, patterns emerge. Keaton had long been candid about her battles with bulimia, an eating disorder that gripped her in her 20s and resurfaced intermittently. In a 2017 People interview, she described the shame of secret binges and purges: “It was my way of controlling the chaos—fame, love, all of it. But it controlled me.” Friends now wonder if the recent weight loss echoed those shadows, exacerbated by age. She also grappled publicly with skin cancer, undergoing multiple surgeries in the 2010s for basal cell carcinomas on her face and neck—scars she wore like badges, slathering on sunscreen in every paparazzi shot. “Sun’s my enemy, but life’s too short to hide,” she joked in her 2014 essay collection Let’s Just Say It Wasn’t Pretty. A recurrence, perhaps undetected, could explain the rapid fade, though medical experts caution against armchair diagnoses.

Grief has rippled through Hollywood like a scene from one of her films—poignant, laced with laughter through tears. Bette Midler, her razor-sharp co-star in The First Wives Club (1996), broke down in a video tribute: “Diane was the glue—brilliant, vulnerable, hilariously unflappable. What you saw was who she was.” Woody Allen, the collaborator who launched her stardom in Annie Hall (1977), called her “my muse, my mirror—the funniest woman I ever knew.” Al Pacino, her Godfather leading man and ex of 16 years, expressed a lifelong regret through a mutual friend: “For years after we split, Al would say, ‘If it’s meant to be, it’s never too late for a do-over.’ But sadly, now it is.” Meryl Streep, who shared the stage of sorrow in Marvin’s Room (1996), hailed her as “our American treasure: indelible, singular girl and brilliant artist.” Even younger stars like Reese Witherspoon, who interviewed her in 2021, tweeted: “Iconic doesn’t cover it. Thank you for showing us how to be fabulous and flawed.”

Keaton’s life, born Diane Hall on January 5, 1946, in Los Angeles to a civil engineer father and photographer mother, was a masterclass in reinvention. Shy and stuttering as a child, she fled to New York at 21, trading her surname for her mother’s maiden name to dodge another actress’s claim. Broadway’s Hair (1968) tested her— she refused nudity for a $50 bonus, earning whispers of “prudish”—but Woody Allen’s Play It Again, Sam (1970) ignited her fire. Their on- and off-screen romance birthed a string of classics: Sleeper (1973), Love and Death (1975), and the Oscar-winning Annie Hall, where her neurotic, tie-wearing Annie became a feminist archetype. “La-dee-da” wasn’t just a line; it was her armor against insecurity.

The 1980s and ’90s saw her evolve: nominated again for Reds (1981) as Louise Bryant, opposite Warren Beatty (another ex), she traded whimsy for gravitas. Comedies like Baby Boom (1987)—where she juggled boardrooms and babies—proved her timeless. Father of the Bride (1991) and The First Wives Club made her the wry matriarch America needed, her quips (“Weddings are like birthdays—only more expensive”) landing like perfectly timed pratfalls. Behind the scenes, she directed Unstrung Heroes (1995), adapted from her brother’s memoir, and adopted her children, embracing single motherhood with the same fierce autonomy that defined her. “I never married because I never found someone who could keep up with my chaos,” she wrote in Then Again (2011), a memoir weaving her diaries with her mother Dorothy’s— who battled Alzheimer’s until 2008.

Later years were a tapestry of quirks: the Book Club trilogy (2018-2023) with Jane Fonda and Candice Bergen, where she devoured erotica at 72 with gleeful abandon; real estate flips that filled her bookshelves; and Instagram odes to dogs and doors, amassing 1.2 million followers. “Dogs and doors: the real MVPs,” she captioned one post, her humor undimmed. But solitude crept in. After her mother’s death, Keaton’s world shrank—caregiving’s toll, perhaps, or the industry’s churn. She rarely watched her films, haunted by perceived flaws: “Every stutter is a bad date relived.” Friends say her final months mirrored that introspection: private dinners, archival dives, and quiet evenings with jazz records spinning.

As tributes flood in—vigils at the Pacific Palisades pier, marathons of Annie Hall on TCM—the 911 call lingers like a final, unflinching close-up. It wasn’t the glamour of Cannes or the roar of applause, but the ordinary ache of a Saturday morning. For a woman who danced through doubt with deadpan grace, it’s fitting: no grand exit, just the soft landing of a life fully, fabulously lived. Duke and Dexter, in a joint statement, echoed her spirit: “Mom showed us how to laugh at the voids. We’ll carry that forward.” In Hollywood’s endless reel, Diane Keaton’s final frame—thin, yes, but twinkling—remains indelible. Rest in “la-dee-da,” dear dame.