There was a time, not too long ago, that when aspiring actors or other entertainers were on the "way up" the career ladder, their managers or, especially during Hollywood's "golden age," the execs, demanded their names be changed to be more "box office" friendly or they were too long or just downright ugly names. Some actors, like Stewart Granger, had to have his professional name changed because his real one was identical to movie icon James Stewart's. He was called "Jimmy" in his offscreen life. The ugly names like Spangler Arlington Brugh and Archibald Leach were changed to the more acceptable names Robert Taylor and Cary Grant, respectively. Others merely dropped their first names, such as William Clark Gable. Still others were like Ira Grossel, who kept his real name legally while using the stage name of Jeff Chandler. Still others had names good enough for the box office or they weren't duplicates of somebody else's names, so they got to keep them professionally as well as personally.
My mother told me once she thought one of the reasons movies were not like they once were was because name changes were largely stopped once the studio era ended. The names of performers tended to be more bland and therefore THEY were more bland despite "method acting" and such. I felt she had a point, and this morning, when I happened to look at television on one of the ESPN networks, I thought of my mother. How in the HELL did ESPN allow somebody to broadcast on their network using a name like "Colin Cowherd" that is so easily the butt of jokes?
Take a look at this Google search if you don't believe me. I wasn't the ONLY one who called him "Colon Cowturd":
link
He pronounces his first name like "Collin" so that nobody will tease him when the correct pronunciation is with a "long o" and not a short one. It doesn't work, of course, when the last name is just as open to ridicule.
Yep, I do yearn for those days of yore when godawful names like this were forced to be changed before radio personalities could be in broadcasting.
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