A Family’s Shadow: How a Genetic Curse Haunted Diane Keaton’s Health

Diane Keaton, who died at 79, lived her life under the shadow of a family curse: a powerful genetic predisposition to skin cancer that haunted her and her relatives. Her lifelong battle with the disease was not just a personal struggle, but an inheritance that shaped her choices, her style, and her advocacy.
“It’s a family history,” Keaton stated, explaining the seriousness with which she treated the disease. Her awareness of this genetic shadow began early, as she was first diagnosed at 21. She recounted the harrowing story of her Auntie Martha, who “had skin cancer so bad they removed her nose,” a grim family tale that underscored the stakes. Her father and brother also suffered from it.
This inherited threat directly led to her most iconic fashion choice—her hats. They were a practical defense against a danger that was encoded in her DNA. What the world saw as a quirky style was, for her, a non-negotiable part of managing her genetic legacy.
This was a fight she had to wage repeatedly. Over her life, she was treated for both basal cell and squamous cell carcinoma, the latter requiring two surgeries. This constant battle was a direct manifestation of the family shadow she could never fully escape.
While this genetic curse was a central part of her health story, she also fought a separate battle against bulimia. But it was her experience with her family’s illness that fueled her public warnings about sun safety. “That’s why you’ve got to put the sunblock on,” she urged, speaking as someone who intimately understood the weight of a family’s shadow.