One afternoon last year, a young actor named Louis Morelli walked into an office in Hollywood. When he walked out, his name was Trax Colton. No one had ever heard of him before, and no one has heard of him since. But he has at least taken his minor place in an ancient rite of Hollywood. Moreover, Morelli was restyled by one of the wizard name changers now practicing the craft—Agent Henry Willson, the man who turned Marilyn Louis into Rhonda Fleming, Francis McGowan into Rory Calhoun, Arthur Gelien into Tab Hunter, Robert Moseley into Guy Madison, and—his great mind wandering from the New Jersey Palisades to the Strait of Gibraltar—Roy Fitzgerald into Rock Hudson.
Since it is axiomatic in show business that the name is rewritten before the teeth are capped, hundreds of literary types like Willson have, over the years, flung into the air a confetti storm of phony names that have settled lightly but meaningfully on the American culture.
Sothern Lake. The largest group is the Readily Understandables. Issur Danielovitch lacks, well, euphony. So the name was shortened to Kirk Douglas. It is also understandable why Tula Ellice Finklea would want to change her name to Cyd Charisse, Frances Gumm to Judy Garland, Bernie Schwartz to Tony Curtis, Sarah Jane Fulks to Jane Wyman, Emma Motzo to Lizabeth Scott, Judith Tuvim to Judy Holliday, Doris Kappelhoff to Doris Day, Aaron Chwatt to Red Buttons, Zelma Hedrick to Kathryn Grayson, Eunice Quedens to Eve Arden, Natasha Gurdin to Natalie Wood, Barney Zanville to Dane Clark, and William Beedle to William Holden. England's James Stewart, eclipsed by Hollywood's James Stewart, changed his name to Stewart Granger. Frederick Bickel—rhymes with pickle—changed his name to Fredric March. Frederick Austerlitz was just too hobnailed a surname to weight the light soles of Fred Astaire. Gary Grant, of course, would have been unstoppable with any name from Pinky Fauntleroy to Adolf Hitler—even, for that matter, with his own name: Archie Leach.
But the whys start colliding with the wherefores. There is a group, for example, that could be called the Inexplicables. Why would a girl with a graceful name like Harriette Lake want to change it to Ann Sothern? John F. Sullivan could have hardly been afraid of being mistaken for John L. when he changed his name to Fred Allen. The name Edythe Marrener is at least as interesting as Susan Hayward. Why change Thelma Ford to Shirley Booth, Jeanette Morrison to Janet Leigh, Patrick Barry to Barry Sullivan, Edward Flanagan to Dennis O'Keefe, Kim Reid to Kim Stanley, Virginia McMath to Ginger Rogers, Julie Wells to Julie Andrews, Helen Beck to Sally Rand, John Hamilton to Sterling Hayden, Diane Belmont to Lucille Ball, Phyllis Isley to Jennifer Jones?