Hollywood has no shortage of reinventions, but for some stars, their makeovers went much further than a new haircut or stage name.
Brooklyn got a Hollywood rewrite
Edythe Marrenner is a name you probably wouldn’t recognize, mostly because it doesn’t seem like a star’s name. Hollywood apparently agreed. That’s why they chose to rename her Susan Hayward, apparently because it was similar to Rita Hayworth.
Hayward was born to a working-class family in Brooklyn, but Hollywood studios didn’t think they could sell that. They gave her the more ‘respectable’ name, and Hayward went on to collect five Oscar nominations. She finally won in 1959 for I Want to Live!
Tasmania looked better on paper
Merle Oberon was famous for her roles in movies like The Dark Angel and Wuthering Heights. She told Hollywood audiences that she was born in Tasmania, but in reality, she was actually born in Bombay, India. Oberon had South Asian ancestry.
But she knew that this sort of truth could’ve limited her career at the time, so she told the story of being born in Australia with a respectable background. Oberon stuck to it even during the height of her fame. She went as far as inventing Australian relatives when questions came up.
A family story that didn’t add up
Raymond Burr was very careful with his private life. So careful, in fact, that he told lies to protect it. The future Perry Mason star told interviewers that he’d been married before and that both his wife and young son had died. None of it was true.
The reality was that Burr lived for over 30 years with Robert Benevides, his male partner and business partner. This was a time when Hollywood wasn’t friendly toward openly gay men, and especially not one who was playing such a traditionally masculine television hero. He kept up the lie of a pretend family instead.
The dates came with the contract
It’s no wonder that Tab Hunter became such a movie star. He had everything Hollywood loved at that time, such as blond hair, blue eyes, an athletic build, and a perfect smile. But the teenage heartthrob had a secret. He was gay.
Warner Bros. knew, but it didn’t want it to be public knowledge, so it made sure to have Hunter regularly photographed with women. He’d appear with actresses like Natalie Wood and Debbie Reynolds to give the impression he had an active Hollywood dating life. But he was actually having relationships with men in secret, including Anthony Perkins.
Betty Perske got a new biography
Lauren Bacall’s real name was Betty Joan Perske. She was a Jewish girl from New York City, but Warner Bros. didn’t think that image would sell, so they changed her name. They also had Bacall train her voice to make it lower, and they created publicity material to give her a more glamorous history.
It got to the point where Bacall herself started hiding her true Jewish identity. Yes, she hid her Jewish background from director Howard Hawks because he was known to be antisemitic.
Spain sounded safer than Mexico
There are few names that sound more made for a movie poster than Gilbert Roland. That’s probably because it wasn’t his real name. No, he was born Luis Antonio Dámaso de Alonso in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and created his stage name using the names of famous actors John Gilbert and Ruth Roland.Â
It was a lot more than a simple change of name, however, as Roland often presented himself as Spanish rather than Mexican. He believed it would give him more opportunities to play a romantic leading man. Being Mexican wasn’t good enough, apparently.
Ramón stayed on the paperwork
The thing with Martin Sheen is that, legally, that has never been his name. It’s just a stage name. The Badlands actor’s real name is Ramón Estévez, and he’s been quite open about why he chose a different one.
He said having a Spanish surname made it a lot harder for him when he was looking for acting work. He switched Ramón Estévez for Martin Sheen on casting sheets, despite all his legal documents keeping the original name. It worked.
Margarita disappeared from the marquee
Rita Hayworth’s transformation was more than a name change. She was born Margarita Carmen Cansino, but Columbia Pictures said that name made her Spanish heritage too obvious. So they changed it. She became Rita Hayworth, and her dark hair was dyed lighter.Â
The studio also used electrolysis to raise her hairline and change the shape of her forehead, just to move her away from the Latin roles she had been getting. The film Gilda was released shortly afterward, and her redesigned image became famous everywhere.
The cover came with a condition
Lily Tomlin had a difficult decision to make in the mid-1970s. She’d already become a huge star from Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, while her performance in Nashville got her an Oscar nomination. But then came Time magazine, which offered her a cover if she publicly came out as gay.
She said no. Tomlin later said that publicly acknowledging her sexuality at that time would’ve been career suicide, although she didn’t invent boyfriends to seem straight. No, she chose to keep her sexuality under wraps because, for her, work came first.
One part of the family stayed private
Shortly before going to college, Carol Channing’s mother told her that her paternal grandmother was Black. Her mother also told her to keep it a secret, and for decades, Carol did so. She went on to become one of Broadway’s most famous stars with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Hello, Dolly!
But that part of her ancestry remained entirely under wraps, and she didn’t reveal her Black ancestry until she released her public autobiography. That was in 2002, and Channing was already 81 by then.
Hollywood kept changing his nationality
There was no fixed identity for actor Anthony Quinn. Studios used him when they needed someone who looked vaguely Mediterranean or Middle Eastern. He was used for Indigenous, Arab, or just plain ‘foreign’ roles, too.
The truth was, however, that he was born in Chihuahua, Mexico. The studios were behind most of his identity reshaping, and he managed to become a huge star through it all. He won two Oscars.
Archie Leach stayed back in Bristol
Archibald Leach started life as a poor kid from Bristol, England, whose father placed his mother in a psychiatric hospital. He let young Archie believe she was gone. Leach moved to America when he was a teenager and caught the acting bug, so he changed his name. He became Cary Grant.
American audiences got the smooth voice and the manners, along with movies such as Notorious and North by Northwest. He hid the truth about his poor upbringing. Grant even said himself that inventing Cary Grant helped him repress his early trauma.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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