When Emilio Estévez appeared in his first professional acting role, he decided to keep using his birth name and not follow in the footsteps of his famous dad, Martin Sheen.
Sheen had been born Ramón Estévez in 1940 but adopted his stage name, which reportedly combined the names of CBS casting director who gave him his first big break, Robert Dale Martin, and Catholic archbishop and broadcaster, Fulton J. Sheen.
Sheen, whose parents were both immigrants – his mother was Irish and his father was Spanish – explained the reason behind his decision to Anglicise his name in a 2003 interview with Inside the Actors Studio.
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“Whenever I would call for an appointment, whether it was a job or an apartment, and I would give my name, there was always that hesitation and when I’d get there, it was always gone,” he said.
“So I thought, I got enough problems trying to get an acting job, so I invented Martin Sheen.
“It’s still Estévez officially. I never changed it officially. I never will. It’s on my driver’s license and passport and everything.
“[But] I started using Sheen, I thought I’d give it a try, and before I knew it, I started making a living with it and then it was too late.
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“In fact, one of my great regrets is that I didn’t keep my name as it was given to me. I knew it bothered my dad.”
Sheen rose to fame as a critically acclaimed actor on both stage and screen during a six-decade career that saw him star in films such as Apocalypse Now, Wall Street and The Departed.
Among his best known roles was as US President Jed Bartlet in the long-running TV series The West Wing.
He and his actress wife Janet went on to have four children, Emilio, Ramón, Carlos, and Renée, who would all go on to become actors.
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When his eldest son, Emilio, was launching his career, he decided to keep his birth name.
He reportedly did so because he liked the alliteration of the double ‘e’ initials, and also didn’t want to ride on the coat tails of his famous father.
After a series of small roles, his breakout part came in the 1982 film Tex, starring Matt Dillon.
The following year, his stardom was cemented when he won a role as part of the ensemble cast in The Outsiders.
He played Two Bit Matthews and is largely recognised as one of the founding members of the Brat Pack alongside another of the movie’s stars Rob Lowe.
The rest of the 80s saw him star in a succession of hit films including The Breakfast Club, St Elmo’s Fire and Stakeout, and later its sequel.
He tried his hand at other genres including drama, horror comedy and action films.
The 90s saw him play a self-centered lawyer who becomes the coach of a youth hockey team as part of his community service in The Mighty Ducks and its sequels, as well as Loaded Weapon 1.
More recently, he appeared in the TV show, The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers.
Meanwhile, his younger brother Carlos Estévez grew up making amateur films with Emilio and friends such as Lowe and Sean Penn.
After he was expelled from Santa Monica High School over poor attendance and grades, he decided to follow in the footsteps of both his father and stepfather and become an actor.
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Unlike his brother, who embraced his Spanish roots, he decided to follow his dad’s example and Anglicise his name to Charlie Sheen.
He explained the move in a TV interview which aired on CBC in 1986.
“I think there’s a better balance with Charlie Sheen the way it has a, you know, nicer ring to it,” he said at the time.
“And as far as the established name, having witnessed Emilio opt for the family name, I figured that with how Pop has established ‘Sheen’ in this business, I should probably carry it on after he’s… retired.”
He claimed in the same interview that Emilio “started out as Sheen but then Dad sort of talked him into” adopting Estevez.
Sheen made a string of films in the 80s. His big break came in the 1984 films Red Dawn and Silence of the Heart before a defining role in the 1986 dramas Platoon and Wisdom, which his brother wrote, directed and co-starred in.
He then starred in Wall Street and again starred opposite his brother in Young Guns, before moving over to comedies such as Major League and Hot Shots.
He is perhaps best known for his long-running role as Charlie Harper in the TV sitcom Two and a Half Men.
Sheen went back to his roots for the 2013 film Machete Kills, where he was credited under his birth name Carlos Estévez.
He said at the time it was a one-off move that was a nod to the film’s Hispanic director and the film’s subject matter.
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