THE NAME GAME

Michael Keaton Plans to Finally Start Using His Real Name

In a new interview with “People,” Michael Keaton says he wants to use his original name.

After 50 years in show business, movie star Michael Keaton plans to change his name. Keaton, born Michael Douglas, was unable to use his birth name professionally because it was already registered in the Screen Actors Guild to another Michael Douglas—the future Oscar winner and son of Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas. Keaton made the name change revelation in a new interview with People and can’t recall exactly how he stumbled upon his new last name. “I was looking through—I can’t remember if it was a phone book,” Keaton told the magazine. “I must’ve gone, ‘I don’t know, let me think of something here.’ And I went, ‘Oh, that sounds reasonable.’” But now, after being credited as Michael Keaton on dozens of projects, the actor would like to be known as Michael Keaton Douglas, a combination of the two. No word on what the ‘other’ Michael Douglas thinks about the name change. Keaton is hardly the first to change their name after moving to Hollywood. People reports that in a similar turn of events, Diane Keaton, actually Diane Hall, chose Keaton because the name was also taken. In April, Emma Stone revealed that she would like to be called by her actual name, Emily Stone.