Diane Keaton

Actress-director Diane Keaton has purchased a two-story Bel-Air home in the $6-million range. The asking price was $7.2 million. Built in 1928, the refurbished classic Spanish-style home has six bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms in slightly more than 7,000 square feet. The home, on nearly an acre with a hacienda-style courtyard, also has a large living room, a den-office, a screening room and a breakfast room. Most rooms open to a pool, spa, cabana and patios. Designed by George Washington Smith, the house was described as being "typical Diane Keaton style."

Broadway composer-lyricist Jerry Herman--who wrote the songs for such classic musicals as "Mame," "La Cage aux Folles" and "Hello, Dolly!"--has sold his Bel-Air home for about $6 million. The 15,000-square-foot house, which Herman bought from producer David Wolper in 1993 and later redesigned and refurbished, has half a dozen bedrooms, a two-story projection room, an office suite and a memorabilia gallery.

"That face!" Diane Keaton exclaims. "It's a great face. It's beautiful!" What is it about Walter Matthau's face? It's curmudgeonly. It's gruff. He seems to have been born looking old. Who in movies had a face like Matthau when he started out in the '50s? Who looked like that and still got the girl? It was an unlovely face. Still is. It's what the term "hang dog" means. But who can look at him now, sad-eyed and grumpy, and say that his face isn't adorable? Heartbreakingly so.

The life of a driven, single New York career woman changes after she's unexpectedly saddled with a kid. . . . Diane Keaton in "Baby Boom"? No, Diane Keaton in "Northern Lights," tonight's new Disney Channel movie. The premise--life-weary adults find redemption through an innocent child--is oh-so-familiar, but there's offbeat pleasure in the execution, due mostly to performances by Keaton and her standout co-star, Maury Chaykin ("Unstrung Heroes"). There's no suspense here.

In "A Very Brady Sequel" (HBO, Saturday at 3 p.m.), Carol Brady's first husband returns, bringing loads of chaos to the the Brady Bunch. Shelly Long, Gary Cole and Tim Matheson star. For the family. * "Tales of Gulliver's Travels" (CBS, Saturday at 9 a.m.). is the final installment of the "Crayola Kids Adventures" specials adapted for young viewers. It stars Adam Wylie Wylie as Dr.

Having gone through the trauma of marrying off a cherished daughter, Steve Martin's (left) George Banks finds himself in another dilemma: No sooner does his daughter Annie (Kimberly Williams, right) announce that she's expecting a baby than his wife, Nina (Diane Keaton), reveals that she too is pregnant (Showtime Sunday at 9:45 p.m.).

Long before the surprise box-office bonanza of Paramount Pictures' "The First Wives Club," Bette Midler and Diane Keaton had individually indicated interest in a project that had slipped through the cracks at United Artists. Now, eager to follow up on the chemistry and commerce generated by "Wives," which has grossed $105 million, they recently decided to team up on the UA venture--with Goldie Hawn also on board.

Among the more inspiring miracles of the modern movie business is the way a producer's first choice for a role always ends up playing that very same part. "It was written with her in mind," one might say (of the blond in her 40s playing the brunet in her 20s). Or, "The picture simply could not have been made without him" (Matthew Modine, perhaps, in "Cutthroat Island"). Blessed are the faithful, for they shall believe the press kit.

You're sitting on a park bench outside the Tavern on the Green restaurant in Central Park. It's early on a perfect Saturday morning in August, which owes its cloudless sky and dry Southern California air to a drought that is threatening to drain the reservoirs of Upstate New York.

If you talk to Diane Keaton long enough about the impressive job of directing she did on "Unstrung Heroes," you may end up wondering why you're talking to her at all. Not that you have that long to talk to anyone at Cannes, where prime interview targets like Keaton are frenetically shuttled from one-on-ones to group situations to TV rooms to photographers like a valuable private railway car being switched from track to track.