Bette Midler shares fond memories of ‘utterly magical’ friend Diane Keaton after her death

Bette Midler is sharing her fondest memories of her late friend, Diane Keaton.

On Tuesday’s episode of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” filmed just days after the “Annie Hall” actress’ death, Midler recalled what it was like working with Keaton on the 1996 film “First Wives Club.”

“[There] was something about her that was completely and utterly magical. She was completely her own person,” the actress said, describing Keaton as “inimitable.”

“I’ve never seen a single comic or actress who could actually imitate her … [she was] so authentically herself.”

Thinking back to her first day on set with Keaton and co-star Goldie Hawn, Midler, 79, remembered sitting down with them at a café for a table read.

“I was so intimidated,” the comedian confessed, noting that Keaton and Hawn, also 79, had more experience than she did in the film industry at that point.

“We sat there and they started telling stories, and I’m telling you, I never laughed so hard in my life,” Midler remembered. “It really was brilliant and magical.”

The “Hocus Pocus” star also praised Keaton’s talents outside of Hollywood.

“And of course, she was brilliantly dressed,” she said of Keaton’s signature style, before raving about her writing and photography skills.

“She’s one of the few people I ever followed on Instagram, because it was so brilliant. The photographs — she was a photographer and she also wrote a number of books. The books are wonderful, very moving, about her family.”

Midler shared that she was “unbearably sad” when she heard the news of Keaton’s death over the weekend.

“The brilliant, beautiful, extraordinary Diane Keaton has died,” Midler wrote in an Instagram post. “I cannot tell you how unbearably sad this makes me. She was hilarious, a complete original, and completely without guile, or any of the competitiveness one would have expected from such a star.”

She added, “What you saw was who she was…oh, la, lala!”

A spokesperson for Keaton confirmed that the “Love and Death” star died in California on Oct. 11. She was 79.