Photo: Onbeing
In the world of entertainment, it is not unusual for artists to use stage names. Some examples are Anthony Quinn, Steven Bauer, Rita Hayworth, and Raquel Welch, who changed their birth names.
Martin Sheen has been an actor for over 50 years, but he regrets choosing to alter his birth name – Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estévez.
Reflecting on his life, the Apocalypse Now star divulged effacing all trace of his father’s, a Spanish immigrant, last name was he was “persuaded” to exercise when he didn’t have “enough insight or even enough courage” to contradict the decision.
“That’s one of my regrets,” he said in an interview with Closer Weekly.
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“I never changed my name officially. It’s still Ramon Estévez on my birth certificate. It’s on my marriage license, my passport, driver’s license. Sometimes you get persuaded when you don’t have enough insight or even enough courage to stand up for what you believe in, and you pay for it later. But, of course, I’m only speaking for myself.”
Sheen’s mother was also an immigrant but Irish. He later convinced his son – also an actor, Emilio Estévez, not to change his birth name when he chose to pursue his own career in the entertainment industry.
“The only influence I had on Emilio was to keep his name,” Sheen continued. “When he started out, his agent was advising him to change his name to Sheen, and he wouldn’t do it. And I thank God he didn’t.”
Sheen’s other son Ramon also absorbed his father’s advice and remained using his given surname. But Charlie Sheen walked the same paths as his father did – he altered his given surname.
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