Michael Keaton
was born Michael Douglas September 5th, 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 Mary's 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
an escaped mental patient with a history of violence,
who also claimed to have built the World Trade Center
and raced in Indy.
Michael really didn't make the front
page until he was cast as the caped crusader in the Tim
Burtons adaptation 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 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 Brannagh 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 f or
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
child's snowman simple yes and it turned out to be a
very cute film. 
For a bit of time Michael seemed to be
making movies that went straight to DVD but in 2003 he
made the HBO movie Live From Baghdad
where he portrayed CNN reporter Robert Werner and
garnered a Golden Globe Nomination for the role. His
next big feature role was that of the president of the
United States to daughter Katie Holmes in the 2004 teen
comedy First Daughter. In 2005 he played the part
of a man who, in his own grief, could hear the
voices of the dead in the white noise given off a
television in the film White Noise. He then
returned to familiar fair yet again with his last role
in the Disney film Herbie: Fully Loaded now
playing the father of Lindsey Lohan.
Michaels's next films included the
animated Disney picture Cars, a dark look at the
theater world in Game 6 and the long awaited TNT
Mini Series The Company due August 2007.
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