Diane Keaton won the AFI Star Award on the final night of the 10th U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colo.
"Simply being awkward, scared and wrong is why I figure I have a place in romantic comedy," Keaton said, accepting the award from the CEO of the American Film Institute, Jean Picker Firstenberg.
Throughout her career of more than 30 years, Keaton, 58, has grown up in front of audiences, portraying an ingenue in Woody Allen's "Annie Hall," a single mother in "Baby Boom," a jilted wife in "The First Wives Club" and in 2003, a 50-something writer who bares all in "Something's Gotta Give."
On Saturday, the 58-year-old actress thanked Nancy Meyers — the writer, director and producer of "Something's Gotta Give" who was also the moderator at the AFI ceremony — for offering her this comeback role.
Keaton said in an industry in which women's parts in Hollywood are relegated to "babe, district attorney and 'Driving Miss Daisy,' " she was "thrilled you gave me this opportunity to play someone in her mid-50s who gets the guy."
Keaton also thanked Woody Allen for writing the seminal role in "Annie Hall" that won her an Academy Award.
Past winners of the AFI Star Award, which recognizes excellence in film and television, include Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg, Steve Martin and Jerry Seinfeld.