Michael
Keaton was born Michael Douglas September
9th, 1951 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania the
youngest of seven children. A young child
with a vivid imagination Michael seemed
to enjoy playing make believe more then
just living the average life of an east
coast kid and at only seven years of age
Michael knew, "I was pretty much in
my own world. I could never have a normal
job ."
Michael dropped out
of Kent State after his sophomore year in
1972 to pursue other venues; he took a
job as a stagehand at a local PBS station
and eventually started his career as a
technical crew person on the set of
Mister Rogers Neighborhood , and even
played the part of Black-and-White Panda.
From then on
Michael had a limited career in
television, from his fifteen seconds of
fame as a bank robber on Mary Hartman,
Mary Hartman to being part of an ensemble
cast of great actors such as Mary Tyler
Moore and Swoozie Kurtz on Marys self
titled variety show; which even stared a
very young David Letterman, and included
the woman Michael would soon marry,
Caroline McWilliams. In the late
seventies Michael and Jim Belushi starred
on Working Stiffs ; a show that was
directed by Penny Marshall, received
great reviews and had all the makings of
a hit, except for the fact that it had no
viewers and was canceled after six
episodes.
In 1982 Michael
almost lost the first big movie role he
ever had, due to the fact that he was too
manic, in the movie Night Shift , co-starring
Henry Winkler and Shelley Long. This
movie helped launch Michaels comedic
career.
In 1983 Michael
went on to make one of the movies he is
best known for, Mr. Mom; in the same year
he became a father in real life to son
Sean Douglas.
Michael made many
movies in the eighties, after turning
down the role Tom Hanks made famous in
Splash , Michael went on to star as a
funny gangster in Johnny Dangerously , a
car maker in Gung Ho, a hockey player in
Touch and Go and a con artist in The
Squeeze ; none were box office successes
and could have ended a career that was
just beginning, but in 1988 Michael made
a little movie titled Beetlejuice which
got his career back on track. He then
followed with a dramatic turn as an
addict in Clean and Sober, and then back
to the funny farm with
The Dream Team as an escaped mental
patient with a history of violence, who
also claimed to have built the World
Trade Center and raced in Indy.
Micheal really
didn't make the front page until he was
cast as the caped crusader in the Tim
Burtons remake of Batman in 1989. No one
thought he could play the part seriously,
but critics were proved wrong when the
film became the number one film of 1989.
Unfortunately not everything was going
great in Michael's life at the time, that
same year Michael and Caroline became
separated and eventually divorced; they
continue to be friends and share custody
of Sean.
Michael and
Caroline at the Batman premiere in 1989 .
Michael was now a certified star, forever
known as Batman he tried a different turn
playing a psychotic madman in Pacific
Heights before going on to make Batman
Returns, co-starring Michelle Pfeiffer
whom he dated briefly after his divorce.
In 1992 Michael
starred in One Good Cop as a cop who
inherits his gunned down partners (Anthony
LaPaglia) children, Rene Russo played his
wife in this very touching yet violent
movie which was criticized for it's
poster and ads which showed Michael
holding up a little girl, instead of
portraying how violent the film was, but
it did point out the restricted rating.
In
1993 Michael went for the tears in the
film My Life where he played a man
stricken with cancer who decides to
document his life for his unborn child.
Michael also appeared in the Kenneth
Branagh film Much Ado About Nothing
earlier that year.
In 1994 Michael played an expectant
father yet again in the great film The
Paper . Michael starred along with
Marissa Tomei, Glenn Close, Randy Quaid
and Robert Duvall as a newspaper editor
struggling with the constant juggling of
his family and his career. I personally
think this is the greatest movie Michael
has ever made.
At this time it was
widely known that Michael had been dating
actress Courteney Cox, who got her start
on Family Ties and went on to star in one
of the freshest comedies of all time,
Friends
They dated for over
five years before ending their
relationship mutually in 1995. "It's
the most important relationship I've ever
had, and I think he's the most wonderful
person I've ever met. We still love each
other." Courteney told People
magazine not long after the breakup.
Michael, Courteney
and the late Ron Brown
Michael's next film
was not until Christmas 1995, where he
starred along with Geena Davis in the
film Speechless , where the two portrayed
speech writers for competing political
parties.
Michael's next film
was Multiplicity , where he played
an over worked man who clones himself,
and who's clones clone themselves until
there are four "Dougs" walking
around, some not as bright as the others.
Christmas 1997
Michael appeared in the Elmore Leonard
film, Jackie Brown , co-starring such
great actors as Samuel L. Jackson, Robert
Deniro and Bridget Fonda. The film was a
critical and box office success and made
Michael's character so memorable that he
then made a cameo in the George Clooney
film, Out Of Sight , which was also based
on an Elmore Leonard novel.
In the spring of
1998 a very controversial movie titled
Desperate Measures , in which Michael
portrayed a convicted serial killer who
is needed to save a child's life, was
finally released to audiences after
numerous re-writes, it did not fair well
with critics or movie goers.
Michael's next film
was more family friendly, and just a bit
colder the his usual fare. In Jack Frost,
co-starring Kelly Preston, Michael played
a man who is killed in a car accident
then reincarnated into his childs snowman
simple yes and it turned out to be a very cute
film.
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