WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 305, 9 December 1936, Page 2

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

CHANGING TIMES IN THE FILM WORLD.

STAGE NAMES NO LONGER NEEDED TO-DAY.

In Hollywood more than anywhere else the advice, “Go make a name for yourself” has been taken seriously. Indeed, at one time, the prime requisites for screen success were a good cameraman and a mellifluous name. The practice of name-chang-ing has died out somewhat, and now* a Simone Simon (pronounced as with ditto marks, like goona-goona) or a Sonja Henie (Sony’a Henny) can appear under her owri* name, despite the difficulty that audiences may have •with pronunciation. But it was not ever thus; if ke, for instance, the case of Theodosia Goodman. Years ago when the nadir of villainy was the vamp, Miss Theodosia Goodman was quite the most dangerous of that seductive sonority. True, she once endeavoured to convince her public that she was really a home girl at heart by appearing as Juliet in a forerunner of the present “Romeo and Juliet,” but people would have none of it. Once a menace always a menace, and Miss Goodman yemains to this day the vamps, Theda Bara. Feminine diabolics gave way thereafter tQ masculine heroics, and it would have been hard to find two more masculine and heroic gentlemen than Messrs Charles Francis Beldam and Ernest Brenner. Where the fights were thickest, there would be found Mr B e ldam or possibly Mr Brenner, but the change had hit them too. Mr Ernest Brenner became Richard Dix and Charles Francis Beldam - turned into Rex Bell. Then there is Miss Gladys Smith. Such is the magic of the movies that under its beneficent influence Miss Smith became America’s sweetheart, Mary Pickford. Numerologists to Blame. Numerologists have taken a lot of the blame, and it is true that some of the stars thought up their own stage - names with the aid of swamis and the number fellows. That greatest numerology of all, however, the box office variety, has usually been the real reason for the juggling of cognomens. It’s easier for folks to handle names like Bruce Cabot and Gene. Raymond than to have to guess ait Jacques de Bujac and Raymond G'uion respectively.

A. fellow named W. C. Dukinfield was a pretty fair juggler and a master of the; unfinished soliloquy, but the box offices knew him not until he became W. C. Fields. That fumbling, worried Wupperman man found it convenient to become Frank Morgan, and Claudette Chauchion became a girl named Colbert. Loretta Young started out as Gretchen and Al Jolson as Asa Yoelson, of ail things. The streamlined Venus, June Lang, was probably just as streamlined when she yvas Jane Vlaskek. Changed Names.

Some names lent themselves readily * to punning, which Hollywood abhors, in its endeavour to keep wit on a high plane;. Therefore Ralph Zink became Donald Woods, Augusta Appel is known as Lila Lee, and Lillian Bohney sought protection from everything except saccharine rhymes as Billie Dove. Other names were- too homespun, like Virginia Katherine McMa.th. She became Ginger Rogers and an admiral in the Texas navy. Carole Lombard wears satins much more alluringly than did Carole June Peters. Others were’ not homespun enough* wherefore Archibald Alexander Leach became just plain Cary Grant, and Mrs Virginia Lillian Emmaline Quartermaine was edited into Fay Compton. That piercing profile looks much better on Warren William than it did on Warren Krech, and the metamorphosis of Agnes Zetterstrand into Shirley Grey is readily understood.

In the- matter of foreign stars, Hollywood has always had difficulty. With Old World tenacity they’ clung to their family names. It was with difficultly that Greta Gustavson was induced to become Greta Garbo, and Muni Weisenfreund Paul Muni. Simpne Simon reached Hollywood with considerable European fame, and has therefore escaped the name changers. None- .the lejss, the 20th Century-Fox Studio is wondering with knit brows how many letters demanding the correct pronunciation of her name the customers will write in after her current “Girls’ Dormitory” gets in general circulation. Postage on replies, the studio feels, may run to a pretty penny’.