20 Classic Hollywood Stars Whose Real Names You’d Never Guess

When Norma Jeane Mortenson was working as a Hollywood extra, 20th Century-Fox talent scout Ben Lyon thought that the name wouldn’t pull in audiences, and suggested she go by “Marilyn,” after Marilyn Miller, a popular star of 1920s Broadway musicals. Norma Jeane tacked on Monroe, her mother’s maiden name. The studio began using it from 1946 onward. Monroe didn’t legally make it her name until a court date in Santa Monica on February 23, 1956.

Marion Robert Morrison was already working as a Hollywood prop builder, under the name Duke, a childhood nickname from his pet dog, before The Big Trail (1930) cast him. He wasn’t even there when Fox Studios head Winfield Sheehan turned down the name “Marion” as being too girlish, and rejected the alternative “Anthony Wayne” because it sounded too Italian. Sheehan and the movie’s director Raoul Walsh chose “John Wayne” together. Getting renamed by your bosses while you aren’t even in the room is very Old Hollywood!

Roy Harold Scherer Jr. was driving a truck in 1947 when he ran into talent agent Henry Willson, who saw in him the makings of a rugged leading man. Willson assembled the name entirely on the basis of geography, and the Rock of Gibraltar and the Hudson River became Rock Hudson. Hudson wasn’t crazy about it, but he used the name in his movie debut, Fighter Squadron (1948).

Born Margarita Carmen Cansino, the future Rita Hayworth had been dancing in Spanish numbers with her father prior to signing with Columbia Pictures in 1937. Columbia’s Harry Cohn made her a star by hiding her ethnicity, changing her name from Cansino to “Hayworth” (from her mother’s maiden name Haworth with a “y” added), raising her hairline with electrolysis, and dyeing her hair auburn. It was Cohn’s commercial decision, not hers.

When British-born acrobat Archibald Alec Leach signed with Paramount Pictures in 1931, studio chief B.P. Schulberg rejected the name Archie Leach as too dull-sounding for the movies. Leach proposed Cary Lockwood, after his own character in the play Nikki, but Paramount rejected the name for fear of confusing him with an actor named Harold Lockwood. Executives at the studio combined “Cary” with “Grant” from a list of last names before his first screen appearance in 1932. At that point, choosing a movie star name was practically a group project.

In 1937, Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler fled Europe and booked passage on the same ocean liner as MGM head Louis B. Mayer, who signed her before the ship even docked. In order to separate her from the 1933 European film “Ecstasy,” which featured nude scenes, Mayer gave her the stage name of Hedy Lamarr, a tribute to the late actress Barbara La Marr. Her American film debut was in “Algiers” (1938).

In 1925, Lucille Fay LeSueur signed with MGM. Studio head Louis B. Mayer and publicity chief Pete Smith both agreed that LeSueur sounded too much like “sewer,” so MGM announced a “Name the Star” contest in Movie Weekly magazine. The winning entry, “Joan Arden,” was disqualified when another performer demonstrated that she had prior rights to the name; “Joan Crawford” was the runner-up. Crawford said it sounded like “crayfish.” So even Joan Crawford wasn’t particularly sold on Joan Crawford.

When Emanuel Goldenberg came over from Bucharest, Romania, to New York in 1903, he began taking acting lessons in 1912. The teacher told him he needed to adopt an Anglo-Saxon name. In 1914, he decided on Edward Robinson, combining King Edward VII with a stage character. The “G.” remained as a quiet tribute to his birth surname, Goldenberg. It didn’t stand for George or anything else.

As a child, Frances Ethel Gumm was billed as one of “The Gumm Sisters” alongside her sisters. In Chicago at the Oriental Theatre in August 1934, the emcee, George Jessel, a vaudeville entertainer, suggested changing the name. Audiences kept giggling when the Gumm girls were introduced, and the press sometimes misprinted the name as “Glum.” The family changed their name to Garland, although various versions of how this came about exist. One year later, when Frances was 13, she added “Judy” after a song by Hoagy Carmichael before signing with MGM Studios.

Leonard Franklin Slye, performing as Len Slye, worked with the Sons of the Pioneers until Republic Pictures got into a contract dispute with its singing cowboy star, Gene Autry, in 1938. After auditioning Slye, studio heads had him perform screen tests under the name Dick Weston. Republic Pictures head Sol Siegel chose “Roy Rogers” (Roy from the French word for king; Rogers after humorist Will Rogers) as Slye’s new name for his first movie role in Under Western Stars (1938).

In 1925, Jane Alice Peters signed with Fox as “Carol Lombard,” the last name borrowed from a family friend. In 1930, while she was contracted to Paramount, posters for Fast and Loose were printed with an additional “e” in her name, Carole Lombard. Paramount didn’t bother to correct the mistake, and Lombard kept the 13-letter spelling the rest of her life. One printing mistake had officially become part of her identity. A later publicity story claiming numerology inspired the extra “e” was fabricated by the studio.

While working as a model in New York City, Betty Joan Perske began taking her mother’s maiden name, Bacal, adding an “l” to make it easier to pronounce. After director Howard Hawks signed her to star in To Have and Have Not (1944), he and his wife, Nancy “Slim” Hawks, determined that Betty Bacall was not as glamorous as they wanted. So they gave her the name Lauren. In private, she continued to call herself Betty until her death.

Bernard Schwartz came of age in the Bronx. In 1948, he signed on with Universal Pictures, which gave him a name that didn’t sound quite as Jewish. It was taken from the novel Anthony Adverse and Kurtz, a name from a branch of his mother’s family, not the maiden name of his mother, Helen Klein. He was billed as Anthony Curtis until 1950, when it was trimmed to Tony Curtis.

William Henry Pratt was born into a family of British civil servants in London, then moved to Canada in 1909. In 1911, in order to avoid embarrassing his family by working as an actor, he changed his name to Boris Karloff while working in Canadian stock theater. He stated that Karloff was the name of his maternal Slavic ancestors, although biographers have been unable to find any evidence of this. It took two more decades for him to become a star, with the release of Frankenstein (1931).

In the 1920s, Frank James Cooper was a Hollywood stunt rider and extra when casting agent Nan Collins told him that “Frank Cooper” was too common in the registries. She offered “Gary” as an alternative, since it sounded tough and it was the name of her hometown of Gary, Indiana. Being named after an Indiana city worked out surprisingly well for a future movie star. Billed as Gary Cooper, he quickly began winning featured roles.

Issur Danielovitch went by Izzy Demsky growing up as the son of Yiddish-speaking immigrants. On classmates’ advice at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, he formally adopted the name Kirk Douglas before serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II and starting his acting career. He used that name on the marquee for his first film in 1946, “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers.” This one, he picked himself.

The singer, born Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff, was singing on Cincinnati radio when bandleader Barney Rapp recruited her in 1939 and told her “Kappelhoff” would never be appropriate on a theater marquee. Rapp suggested “Doris Day,” inspired by her rendition of “Day After Day.” She disliked the name at first but kept it, making her film debut in Romance on the High Seas (1948).

Born Ruby Katherine Stevens, she was a chorus girl in Brooklyn when she got her start as an actress in the play The Noose (1926). Playwright Willard Mack and producer David Belasco thought her name should have more drama than that. They found an old play poster titled “Barbara Frietchie” and looked up the actress on the same bill: Jane Stanwyck. Half from the play title, half from another actress, Barbara Stanwyck was born on Broadway, a year before she ever made it to Hollywood.

Virginia Katherine McMath got her nickname from a young cousin who couldn’t say Virginia and called her Ginja instead, which turned into Ginger. Her mother later remarried a man named John Logan Rogers, so she used his last name. A toddler’s mispronunciation had supplied the other half of one of Hollywood’s most recognizable names. She became Ginger Rogers professionally in 1925, after winning the Texas Charleston Dance Championship.

Fred Astaire’s real name was Frederick Austerlitz. He began doing vaudeville with his sister, Adele, in 1905, in Omaha, Neb. His mother, Johanna Austerlitz, was concerned that the last name sounded harsh and too close to the 1805 Battle of Austerlitz, so she chose the stage name “Astaire” instead. Fred took the name all the way to his Hollywood debut in Dancing Lady (1933), some 28 years after his mother selected it.

This content was created with the help of AI.