In the olden time,
when I was watching and writing about television for a living
and going to movies for fun, Renee Zellwegger (Chicago)
and Reese Witherspoon (Legally Blonde) would never have
made it as film stars.
Not with those names.
The powers-that-be
would have changed them to names which would fit better on a marquee.
And in Zellwegger's case, a name that didn't sound so ethnic.
It wasn't male chauvinism. They did it to male actors, too. Roy
Rogers was really Leonard Slye. (And his wife, Dale Evans, was
really Frances Octavia Smith.) Zellwegger
would have become something more middle-American, say Elsworth.
Mamie Elsworth? Does that work for you?
Take Doris Mary Ann
von Kappelhoff, for example. She changed her name to Doris Day
and look how far she got. Others who kept their first name when
they switched monikers include Greta Garbo, born, Greta Lovisa
Gustafson, and Audrey Hepburn, whose real name would require a
marquee stretching around the block — Audrey
Kathleen van Heemstra Ruston.
Marlene Dietrich kept
her last name but switched from Marie to Marlene, which somehow
seems more fitting. Dinah Shore also retained her last name when
she switched from Fanny Rose Shore.
Ginger Rogers did a
full switch, having been Virginia MacMath, although Ginger could
be a nickname for Virginia. And so did Demi Moore, having originally
been Demetria Guynes. Judy Garland got the works, too. From Frances
Gumm. And Rita Hayworth. She was Margarita Carmen Cansino when
she danced professionally with her father.
Two actresses from
Houston had perfectly acceptable movie-type names but changed
them anyhow. Ann Miller was Lucille Collier. Gale Storm was Josephine
Cottle but her movie name was preordained. It went with the Gateway
To Hollywood contest she won.
A host of male actors
of an earlier day were also nomenclaturely altered. I long thought
Tyrone Power must be one of them because the name is so proudly
theatrical but it was his real name, minus a Jr. tacked on when
he was born. Tyrone Power, Sr. was also an actor as was an ancestor
before them, also named Tyrone Power.
Among those did get
the show business metamorphosis are Paul Muni, from Meshilen Meier
Weisenfreund; Tony Curtis, from Bernard Schwartz; Mickey Rooney,
from Joe Yule, Jr; Edward G. Robinson, from Emmanuel Goldenberg,
to name a few.
Speaking of names,
would you go see a movie just because Archibald Leach, Sofia Scicolone
and Roy Sherer were in it? I would. Who wouldn't want to see a
film starring Cary Grant, Sophia Loren and Rock Hudson?
