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Quirky, inventive and handsome US actor who first achieved major fame with his door busting performance as fast talking, ideas man "Bill Blazejowski" alongside nerdish morgue attendant Henry Winkler in Night Shift (1982). Keaton was born Michael John Douglas on September 5th, 1951 in Corapolis, Pennsylvannia and studied speech for two years at Kent State, before dropping out and moving to Pittsburgh. An unsuccessful attempt at stand up comedy led Keaton to working as a TV cameraman in a cable station, and he came to realize he wanted to work in front of the cameras.Keaton left Pittsburgh and moved to Los Angeles to begin auditioning for various TV parts. He first appeared on TV in several episodes of _Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" (1975)_ , and cropped up in other popular TV shows including _"Maude" (1977)_ and _"Mary Tyler Moore Hour, The"_ (1979)_ . Around this time Keaton decided to use an alternative surname to remove confusion with well known actor Michael Douglas, and after reading an article on actress Diane Keaton, he decided that "Michael Keaton" sounded pretty good. His next key break was scoring a co-lead alongside James Belushi in the short lived comedy series "Working Stiffs" (1979), which showcased his comedic talent and got him into the casting for the co-lead in Night Shift (1982). After his terrific performance in NS, Keaton scored the lead in the subsequent comedy hits _Mr. Mom (1982)_ , Johnny Dangerously (1984) , Gung Ho (1986) and the Tim Burton horror-comedy _Beetlejuice (1988)_ .Keaton's career was given another major boost when in 1989 he was cast by Tim Burton as millionaire playboy / crime-fighter Bruce Wayne in the big budget remake of Batman (1989). To say their were howls of protest by fans of the caped crusader comic strip is an understatement.....Warner Bros. were literally deluged with thousands of letters of complaint by fans commenting that the comedic Keaton was the wrong choice for the Gotham City crime fighter. However, their fears were proved wrong when Keaton turned in a sensational performance, and he was an equal on screen opponent to the skillful Jack Nicholson playing the lunatic villain, "The Joker". Keen to diversify his work, Keaton next appeared as a psychotic tenant in Pacific Heights (1990), as a hard working cop in One Good Cop (1991) and then he returned to wear the black cape and cowl once more for Batman Returns (1992).He remained in demand during the 1990s, appearing in a wide range of films including the star studded Shakespearian Much Ado About Nothing (1993), another Ron Howard comedy The Paper (1994), with sexy Andie MacDowell in Multiplicity (1996), as a dogged cop in Jackie Brown (1997) and the mediocre thriller Desperate Measures (1998). Since the turn of the century, Keaton has appeared in several productions with mixed success including _Live From Baghdad (2002)_ , First Daughter (2004) and _Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005)_ . |
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