Many celebrities use stage names. They can be variations of the name they received at birth or something completely different, yet I nearly always find myself shocked when I learn that someone whose name I’ve known my entire life turns out to be a lie. That might be a bit dramatic. I should get out more. Some of you may have already known this (it’s never been a secret), but Michael Keaton was not born Michael Keaton; he was born Michael Douglas, and he’s looking to take the name back. Perhaps some Highlander-type battle is in order.
When Michael Keaton started his career in the 1970s, he was forced to choose a different name as the Screen Actors Guild doesn’t allow members to use another member’s professional name. Michael Douglas was already taken by… Michael Douglas, and there was also Mike Douglas, the talk-show host, so that option was out as well. Keaton told People that he may have actually turned to a phone book to pick his stage name.
“I was looking through — I can’t remember if it was a phone book,” Keaton said. “I must’ve gone, ‘I don’t know, let me think of something here.’ And I went, ‘Oh, that sounds reasonable.” After over forty years as Michael Keaton, the actor said he’d like to use a hybrid of his birth name and stage name: Micheal Keaton Douglas. He had wanted to use the new moniker on Knox Goes Away, the thriller which he directed and stars in as a dementia-afflicted hitman, but forgot to make it happen. “I said, ‘Hey, just as a warning, my credit is going to be Michael Keaton Douglas.’ And it totally got away from me,” Keaton said. “And I forgot to give them enough time to put it in and create that. But that will happen.“
Michael Keaton, or Michael Keaton Douglas, will next be seen in Beetlejuice Beetljuice: “Beetlejuice is back! After an unexpected family tragedy, three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River. Still haunted by Beetlejuice, Lydia’s life is turned upside down when her rebellious teenage daughter, Astrid, discovers the mysterious model of the town in the attic and the portal to the Afterlife is accidentally opened,” reads the official synopsis. “With trouble brewing in both realms, it’s only a matter of time until someone says Beetlejuice’s name three times and the mischievous demon returns to unleash his very own brand of mayhem.” The film has been praised as a return to form for Tim Burton, with our own Chris Bumbray calling it the director’s “most energetic, playful, and creative film in years.” You can check out the rest of Bumbray’s review right here.
The film will be released in U.S. theaters on September 6th.