As Hollywood legend has it, when Michael Keaton was pursuing a show business career in the 1970s, he picked his stage name out of a phone book.
He couldn’t use his birth name, Michael Douglas, since the Screen Actors Guild prohibits members from using another member’s professional name.
The union already had a Michael Douglas (the future Wall Street Oscar winner) and a Mike Douglas (the talk show host). So he became Michael Keaton.
Asked about the phone book story, Keaton tells PEOPLE he’s not quite sure how he opted for the moniker that’s appeared on dozens of movie posters.
“I was looking through — I can’t remember if it was a phone book,” says Keaton, 72, raising those famously expressive eyebrows at times as he talks. “I must’ve gone, ‘I don’t know, let me think of something here.’ And I went, ‘Oh, that sounds reasonable.’”
And while the name “Keaton” has …