After 50 years, Michael Keaton is outgrowing his stage name and returning to his roots.
The Academy Award nominee, who was born Michael John Douglas, recently explained how he landed on his professional moniker after the Screen Actors Guild prohibited him from using the same name as Wall Street actor Michael Douglas or talk show host Mike Douglas.
“I was looking through — I can’t remember if it was a phone book,” Keaton recalled to People. “I must’ve gone, ‘I don’t know, let me think of something here.’ And I went, ‘Oh, that sounds reasonable.’”
He first appeared onscreen in 1975 episodes of Where the Heart Is and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, nearly a decade after Douglas’ first appearance in Cast a Giant Shadow (1966). Keaton has since gone on to rack up more than 90 credits under his stage name.
The Birdman star explained that he plans to combine to two names in future credits as Michael Keaton Douglas, which he intended to do as star and director of last year’s Knox Goes Away.
“I said, ‘Hey, just as a warning, my credit is going to be Michael Keaton Douglas.’ And it totally got away from me. And I forgot to give them enough time to put it in and create that. But that will happen,” added Keaton.
For his latest movie Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the sequel to Tim Burton‘s 1988 cult classic, the actor remains credited as Michael Keaton.
