I’m not an expert by any means but I’m a massive fan of classic cinema and stars!

But I’ll have to correct you. Both Male and Female stars changed their names.

From what I have learned over the years, the first reason as to why they changed names was because many up and coming stars of the time were encouraged to pick ‘pretty’ or ‘snappy’ sounding names. If names were sometimes too long, they were told to pick something shorter.

The second reason was to do with the cultural context. Rampant racism at the time meant that many of the stars who had maybe Jewish, Latin, or other ‘non-white/Christian/English’ sounding birth names, were told by their studios or managers to change their names. From this, they were told they’d get more roles.

For example, Marilyn Monroe rolls more off the tongue than Norma Jeane Baker/Dougherty. With her new name, came a new makeover.

Rita Hayworth, born Margarita Carmen Cansino, changed her name to Rita Cansino. Fox fired her and under a new contract with Columbia, was told to change it to Hayworth. Changing it to Hayworth sounded more ‘white’ and therefore, she’d get more roles instead of just minor Spanish or Latin roles. Again, with that came a new makeover.

However, many Old Hollywood men changed their names too; Tony Curtis was born Bernard Schwartz Rock Hudson was Roy Harold Sherer Jr. Kirk Douglas was Issur Danielovitch, John Wayne was Marion Morrison (sounded too feminine I suppose) Jerry Lewis was Joseph Levitch Fred Astaire was Frederick Austerlitz Cary Grant was Archibald Alec Leach Etc.....

The list goes on and on. Of course, there were exceptions but for the most part, both male and female stars changed their names. Hope this was clear!

P.S. I’m writing this on my phone so I apologise if the formatting is awful!