50 facts about actor Martin Sheen born Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estévez

50 things you missed about actor Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estévez, better known by his stage name Martin Sheen.

1. Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estévez is better known by his stage name Martin Sheen.

2. He is of Galician-Spanish and Irish ancestry.

3. He first achieved fame with roles in the films Badlands and Apocalypse Now.

4. Other notable films in Sheen's career include Gettysburg, The Departed, and The Amazing Spider-Man.

5. He also starred in the television series The West Wing as President Josiah Bartlet.

6. In film, he has won the Best Actor award at the San Sebastián International Film Festival for his performance as Kit Carruthers in Badlands.

7. His portrayal of Capt. Willard in Apocalypse Now earned a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor.

8. Sheen has worked with a wide variety of film directors, such as Richard Attenborough, Francis Ford Coppola, Terrence Malick, David Cronenberg, Mike Nichols, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Oliver Stone.

9. He has had a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame since 1989.

10. In television, he has won both a Golden Globe and two Screen Actors Guild awards for playing the role of President Josiah Bartlet in The West Wing.

11. He also won an Emmy for guest starring in the sitcom Murphy Brown.

12. He was born and raised in the United States by immigrant parents.

13. He adopted the stage name Martin Sheen to help him gain acting parts.

14. He is the father of four children.

15. All of his children actors.

16. His younger bother Joe Estevez is also actor.

17. Although known as an actor, Sheen also has directed one film, Cadence, appearing alongside sons Charlie and Ramón.

18. He has narrated, produced, and directed documentary television, earning two Daytime Emmy awards in the 1980s.

19. In addition to film and television, Sheen has been active in liberal politics.

20. During birth, Sheen's left arm was crushed by forceps, giving him limited lateral movement of that arm, which is three inches shorter than his right.

21. His mother is from Borrisokane, County Tipperary, Ireland.

22. His father was born in Parderrubias, Galicia, Spain.

23. After moving to Dayton in the 1930s, his father was a factory worker/machinery inspector at the National Cash Register Company.

24. Sheen grew up on Brown Street in the South Park neighborhood, one of ten children.

25. Sheen contracted polio as a child and had to remain bedridden for a year.

26. At age 11, Martin's mother died and the children faced the possibility of living in an orphanage or foster homes. The family was able to remain together with the assistance of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Dayton.

27. He was raised as a Catholic.

28. Sheen was the first of his parents' children born in the United States.

29. At age 14 he organized a strike of golf caddies while working at a private golf club in Dayton, Ohio. He complained about the golfers: "They often used obscene language in front of us. . . . we were little boys and they were abusive . . . anti-Semitic . . . And they, for the most part, were upstanding members of the community."

30. Sheen was drawn to acting at a young age, but his father disapproved of his interest in the field.

31. Despite his father's opposition, Sheen borrowed money from a Catholic priest and moved to New York City in his early twenties, hoping to make it as an actor.

32. He spent two years in the Living Theatre company.

33. It was in New York that he met the legendary Catholic activist Dorothy Day. Working with her Catholic Worker Movement, he began his commitment to social justice, and would one day go on to play Peter Maurin, cofounder of the Catholic Worker Movement, in Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story.

34. Sheen deliberately failed the entrance exam for the University of Dayton so that he could pursue his acting career.

35. He adopted his stage name, Martin Sheen, from a combination of the CBS casting director, Robert Dale Martin, who gave him his first big break, and the televangelist archbishop, Fulton J. Sheen.

36. In a 2003 Inside the Actors Studio interview, Sheen explained,

37. 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. So I thought, I got enough problems trying to get an acting job, so I invented Martin Sheen. It's still Estevez officially. I never changed it officially. I never will. It's on my driver's license and passport and everything. 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. 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.

38. Sheen married Janet Templeton on December 23, 1961.

39. All of his children but one decided to keep their own names when they began acting - Carlos made the decision to use his father's stage name, Charlie Sheen.

40. Charlie and his father jointly parodied their respective previous roles in the 1993 movie Hot Shots! Part Deux their river patrol boats passed each other, at which point they both shouted, "I loved you in Wall Street!" a film they both starred in as father and son in 1987.

41. He has played the father of sons Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen in various projects: he played Emilio's father in The War at Home, In the Custody of Strangers and The Way, and Charlie's father in Wall Street, No Code of Conduct and two episodes of Spin City.

42. He also appeared as a guest star in one episode of Two and a Half Men playing the father of Charlie's neighbor Rose, and another as guest star Denise Richards' father.

43. Martin also played a "future" version of Charlie in a VISA TV commercial.

44. Martin has played other characters with his children. He starred in the film Bobby, which was directed by Emilio, who also starred in the movie alongside his father.

45. Renée had a supporting role in The West Wing, as one of President Josiah Bartlet's secretaries.

46. Sheen became a grandfather at age 43 when his son Emilio had a son named Taylor Levi with his girlfriend, Carey Salley.

47. Sheen has a total of ten grandchildren.

48. He celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary in 2011.

49. In 2012, Sheen was a guest on the U.S. version of Who Do You Think You Are?, tracing his Irish and Spanish ancestry.

50. Sheen has said he was greatly influenced by the actor James Dean.

Source: Wikipedia.org