DIANE KEATON My brother & the other side of NORMAL

If you’ve seen Annie Hall, Woody Allen’s 1977 classic, you’ll remember the scene: Diane Keaton’s title character and her boyfriend Alvy, played by Allen, are riding in a car on a rainy night. At the wheel is Annie’s brother, Duane (Christopher Walken), who has confided to Alvy earlier that he sometimes imagines steering straight into the headlights of oncoming cars. As Duane drives, the camera lingers on Alvy’s comically terrified face.

The Duane character, Keaton confirms now, was based on her real-life brother, Randy. And while the film played Duane’s oddness for laughs, the truth about Randy was darker and far more complex. In her new memoir, the actress looks back on her relationship with her brother –now 71, suffering from dementia and living in a care facility – who was given various diagnoses over the years (bipolar, schizoid personality disorder) but never quite found one that stuck. Keaton describes him as “on the other side of normal” almost from birth. A talented artist, he crafted collages and wrote poetry, some of which was published. A severe alcoholic, he lived most of his life as a recluse – and confessed to disturbing, violent fantasies about women. “Over the years people did a lot of measuring of Randy’s mental status, and it all came to nought,” says Keaton, 74, sitting down with WHO in her light-filled LA home as her golden retriever Emmie sidles up for a pat. “He was so hidden. I wanted to explore the mystery of him.”