MARTIN SHEEN’S BIGGEST REGRET
VETERAN actor Martin Sheen says he “regrets” using a stage name instead of his original moniker, Ramon Estevez.
The 81-year-old actor, who starred in Apocalypse Now and played President Josiah Bartlet on TV’s The West Wing, notes his real name is still on his passport and driver’s license.
But Sheen, whose family comes from Galicia, Spain, admits the name change was supposedly to help his career, saying: “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.”
His actor son Carlos changed his name to Charlie Sheen, 56, but the family patriarch convinced oldest actor son Emilio Estevez, 60, to keep his name.
“When he started out, his agent was advising him to change his name and I thank God he didn’t,” says the superstar.