Playing the name game

Paul, a 50-year-old credit controller who lives in Morris Green Lane, Bolton, has spent more than 40 years acquiring knowledge about the names you never see in lights.

He appeared on television's famous Mastermind show in 1991 and came second.

These days he turns out regularly in both the Bolton Premier and Bolton Open Quiz Leagues.

This article has appeared previously in the quarterly magazine produced for former Mastermind contestants.

He confesses to having a middle name for which he has never forgiven his parents - but answers "no way" when asked to share it with BEN readers. WHEN I was about eight or nine years old, like most little boys, I thought that my father knew absolutely everything and that nothing whatsoever could perplex him.

One evening he had taken delivery of his Film Magazine and was poring over it intensely. Suddenly, he exclaimed: "Well, I didn't know that!"

When I asked him what he could have possibly read in his beloved magazine that he didn't already know, as he was a film buff, he replied: "Robert Taylor's real name is Spangler Arlington Brugh."

I hadn't a clue who Robert Taylor was, but I was hooked.

For the next 40 years or so, I have made it my business to find out which famous people have, for whatever reason, changed their names. Some two thousand real names later, I'm still as fascinated as ever.

Why have so many actors, singers, dancers, authors, musicians, artists, politicians, businessmen and sportsmen not used the name with which they were born - the given name which doting parents may have spent many hours deciding on, or the distinguished surname of which many previous generations had been honourably and justly proud?

Many have changed their name very little. Nathaniel Adams Coles became Nat Cole by dropping an 'S'. Michael Bentin added an 'E'. Actress Dorothy Maloney left off a 'Y' and became Dorothy Malone. Some have used parts of their real names for their pseudonyms or stage names.

Gordon Langford became Musician Don Lang as a presenter of Six-Five Special on television. John Anthony Burgess Wilson simply dismissed John and Wilson to become a famous author, while Raymond Pierre Carlo Bessone coiffured the stars as Mr Teasy-Weasy, Pierre Raymond.

Among those who didn't, presumably, care very much for their parents' choice of forenames are Mary Frances Reynolds, who became Debbie, Marilyn Pauline Novak (Kim), Nigel Neill (Sam), Kenneth King (Jonathan) and Frances Octavia Evans, who became famous as Dale Evans, the wife of Roy Rogers, which brings us to another category of name changers.

That famous upholder of Law and Order, that champion of the Fair and Good, was actually born Leonard Slye.

Good old Roy changed his name for fairly obvious reasons, as did Diana Fluck (Diana Dors), Frances Gumm (Judy Garland), Eugene Klass (Gene Barry), Dennis Pratt (Quentin Crisp), William Pratt (Boris Karloff), Lillian Clott (Georgia Brown), Eric Clapp (Eric Clapton) and Gladys Smith (Mary Pickford).

Surely thousands of fashion-conscious people on both sides of the Atlantic might have second (or even third) thoughts at having Ralph Lipschitz blazoned across their chests, but are quite happy with Ralph Lauren.

Having said all that, why did John Uhler Lemmon III stick to being plain old Jack Lemmon?

Maria Callas, like so many before and since, anglicised her name - certainly more pronounceable than Cecilia Sophia Anna Maria Kalogeropoulos. The same can be said (not very easily) for Issur Danilovitch Dernsky (Kirk Douglas), Larushcka Mischa Skikne (Laurence Harvey), Mladen Sekulovitch (Karl Malden) and Walter Mataschanskayasky (Walter Matthau).

Maybe enjoyment of some of the great entertainers wouldn't have been quite the same if we had to sing and dance along to Frederick Austerlitz and Virginia McMath rather than Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

Would we have laughed as much at Bartholomew and Wiseman as we did at Morecambe and Wise, or Derbyshire and Harper as we did at Cannon and Ball, and surely Mike and Bernie Winters has a better ring than Michael and Bernard Weinstein?

We often quote the wit of Groucho Marx by just using his stage name, but would it have the same poignancy if you quoted Julius? Apparently, James Michael Aloysius Bradford became known as Jimmy Nail in his early days of working in a factory when he stepped on a nail and badly injured his foot.

When you think what he could have stepped on, I suppose we should be thankful he only stepped on a nail!

A favourite of mine belongs to Karen Verne, a German actress who made a few Hollywood films - including King's Row with Ronald Reagan - who was actually born Ingabor Katrine Klinckerfuss.

One of the longest names in the world of famous people is Ramon Felipe San Juan Mario Silvio Enrico Smith Heathcote-Brace Sierra Y Alvarez-Del Rey Y De Los Verdes, who, fortunately for his publishers, chose to write under the name of Lester Del Rey.

Perhaps not as long, but equally grand are such names as Derek Julius Gaspard Ulric Niven Van Der Bogaerde (Dirk Bogarde), Caterina Irene Imperiali Di Francavilla (Katie Boyle), Florentia Bisenta De Casillas Martinez Cardona (Vicki Carr) and Rudolf Alfosso Rafaelo Pierre Filibert Guglielmi Di Valentino D'Antongoulla (Rudolf Valentino).

Herbert Lom remains one of my favourite actors, simply because his real name is Herbert Charles Angelo Kuchacevich Ze Schluderpacheru, but my all time favourite always has been and always will be, the one that started the whole damned thing off - Spangler Arlington Brugh.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.