CNN
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Michael Keaton can’t even remember how he got his stage name.

“I looked through it — I can’t remember if it was a phone book,” the “Beetlejuice” star told People about the origin of his use of the name Keaton. “I must have thought, ‘I don’t know, let me think of something here.’ And I thought, ‘Oh, that sounds reasonable.'”

The actor, now 72, explained that although he was born as “Michael Douglas,” he was not allowed to use that name in Hollywood because another Oscar-winning actor and son of Kirk Douglas, Michael Douglas, already used that name.

The well-known talk show host also worked for Mike Douglas.

The Screen Actors Guild prohibits two actors from using the same name, so Keaton chose Keaton. And although he has made quite a name for himself, the actor would like to be known professionally as “Michael Keaton Douglas.”

That’s exactly what he had planned for his latest directorial effort, “Knox Goes Away.” In the hustle and bustle of filming, however, Keaton forgot to bring the film to the screen.

“I said, ‘Hey, just a heads up, my name is going to be Michael Keaton Douglas.’ And it completely slipped my mind,” he explained. “And I forgot to give them enough time to put it in and create it. But that’s what’s going to happen.”

In his latest major project, the sequel to Beetlejuice, he is credited as Michael Keaton.