Michael Keaton picked his surname by flicking through a phone book
Born Michael Douglas, he needed a new name because a famous actor and a talk-show host already had it. So he opened a phone book at K and stopped at Keaton. The renamed comic went on to be Beetlejuice, Batman and, decades later, a washed-up superhero actor in Birdman.
The youngest of seven children, he was born near Pittsburgh on September 5, 1951, and raised Catholic in the towns west of the city. After two years studying speech at Kent State he returned home and got his start on Pittsburgh public television, including Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, where he worked full time as a production assistant and played one of the Flying Zucchini Brothers. Stand-up comedy helped pay the bills. He later hosted PBS tributes to Fred Rogers.
Moving to Los Angeles, he adopted the new surname and has denied that it honoured either Diane or Buster Keaton. Ron Howard's Night Shift in 1982, with Keaton as the motor-mouthed schemer Billy Blaze, led to the hit Mr. Mom, and studios kept him in comedies. His attempts at drama stalled: a hockey film sat on the shelf for two years, and Woody Allen replaced him in The Purple Rose of Cairo after deciding he seemed too modern.
Then came 1988, when Tim Burton made him the title ghoul in Beetlejuice and he played an addicted realtor in Clean and Sober. When Burton cast him as Batman the next year, Warner Bros. received thousands of letters of complaint, yet the film became one of 1989's biggest hits. Reading Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns persuaded Keaton the part should be brooding rather than campy. After Batman Returns he quit the franchise when Burton left, reportedly refusing $15 million, and Val Kilmer took over.
Birdman in 2014 cast him as a fading actor known for a superhero role, earning an Oscar nomination and his first Golden Globe. Parts in Spotlight, The Founder as Ray Kroc, and the Vulture in Spider-Man: Homecoming followed. He won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for Dopesick, playing a doctor hooked on painkillers, and returned as both Batman and Beetlejuice in 2023 and 2024.
Source: Michael Keaton
