Pseudonyms, aliases and stage names are a necessary part of showbiz – especially during those early Hollywood days when budding actors wandered to its gates, their names a concoction of various nationalities, their parents first generation immigrants from Italy, Germany and Ireland.
The trick is no less fashionable today, but it appears as though those who have changed their names have seen their image shaped by it. Of course, one could argue that the name is influenced and charged with meaning by the image, making it impossible to shake certain actors in our minds from the film genres they tend to inhabit. Yet the examples below tend towards it all starting with the name – a new identity – for the actor to carve out their place in cinema.
Martin Sheen – Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estévez (August 3rd, 1940)
Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estévez was born to a Spanish father, Francisco Estévez, and an Irish mother, Mary-Anne Phelan. He would later change his name to “Martin Sheen” to make him more attractive to Hollywood casting agents. He explained his reasons for such in a 2003 Inside the Actors Studio interview:
Whenever I would call for an appointment, whether it was a job or an apartment, and I would give my name, there was always that hesitation and when I’d get there, it was always gone. So I thought, I got enough problems trying to get an acting job, so I invented Martin Sheen. It’s still Estevez officially. I never changed it officially. I never will. It’s on my driver’s license and passport and everything. I started using Sheen, I thought I’d give it a try, and before I knew it, I started making a living with it and then it was too late. In fact, one of my great regrets is that I didn’t keep my name as it was given to me. I knew it bothered my dad.
He took the “Martin” from Robert Dale Martin, a casting director who gave him his first big break, and the “Sheen” from Fulton J. Sheen, a televangelist archbishop.
It explains the rather factitious nature of his offspring’s surnames. Emilio Estévez nobly wanted to avoid nepotism and refused to ride “into the business as ‘Martin Sheen’s son’.” (Gail Buchalter, People Magazine, 28th Feb, 1983). Charlie “Tiger Blood” Sheen (born Carlos Irwin Estévez), evidently had no such qualms.
John Wayne – Marion Robert Morrison (May 26th, 1907 – June 11th, 1979)
Now is probably a good time to start reassessing everything you’ve presumed about masculinity. John Wayne, the man’s man, machismo in human form, entered this world as ‘Marion’.
Marion. Say it out loud, and what do you picture? Marion Cotillard, most probably. One of the most beautiful women in cinema, famous for roles in La Vie en Rose and Inception. Or perhaps an old lady who’s friends with your grandma. Not this:
not holding a gun. And he’s punching.
‘Marion’ and ‘John Wayne’ – the two concepts reject each other, like the matching poles of a magnet. It becomes supercharged, because John Wayne isn’t simply a man. He’s an icon of the gender’s extremities.
He shed the name as soon as an alternative became available. In Marion’s youth, he had a huge Airedale Terrier named Duke. A local fireman nicknamed Marion “Little Duke” on account of his relative size. Which is why most dads lovingly refer to John Wayne these days as “The Duke” with a twinkle in their eyes, as if they used to shoot the breeze over beers twice a week in some rundown saloon after work.
His first onscreen credit was as “Duke Morrison,” for a bit part in Words and Music (1929), but it never caught on. To support himself while trying to make it in Hollywood, Duke worked as a prop boy. Then one day the director Raoul Walsh saw “him carrying a big armchair above his head – carrying it with flair and flourish…as if it was a young girl in a red robe being lifted up in mercy and wonder” (David Thompson, The Biographical Dictionary of Film, p.1024). “Anthony Wayne,” Walsh suggested, after a Revolutionary War general. Too Italian, replied the studio chief. And what could have been more American than “John”?
Nicolas Cage – Nicolas Kim Coppola (January 7th, 1964)
Speaking of Italian names, how about Coppola? Nicolas Cage was born Nicolas Kim Coppola, to his mother, Joy Vogelsang, and his father, August Coppola – director Francis Ford Coppola’s brother.
It makes Cage the nephew of Francis Ford, and therefore also cousin to Coppola’s two children, Roman and Sofia, whom are both also directors.
And also cousin to Jason Francesco Schwartzman (the Wes Anderson staple actor), whose mother is Francis Ford’s sister, the actress Talia Shire (née Coppola).
Oh, to be at a Christmas Coppola family gathering, all intimately huddled round together, watching Francis’ old, charming, 8mm home recordings.
Francis Ford: “Look, here’s us all with Al Pacino in between takes of The Godfather.”
The Coppolas: “Awwww.”
Francis Ford: “And this, look at this – remember that great summer where we were round the Spielbergs’ every other day?”
The Coppolas: “Awwww.”
Sofia: “Hey, isn’t that when Francis drove Martin Sheen…”
Nic: “Who’s Martin Sheen?”
Sofia: “…sorry, I mean Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estévez. Yeah, this is the video of when Francis encouraged Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estévez to drink so much alcohol and do so many drugs, leading him deeper and deeper into a pit of his own despair, in the hotel scene of Apocalypse Now, which induced a heart attack only a few days later, just to coax a more personally raw performance out of him.”
The Coppolas: “Aw – wait, what?”
Originally, Nicolas Coppola changed his name to avoid being associated with the above, a bold move when trying to make it in the movie biz. Being a big comic book fan (he’s about 6 feet tall), he chose the surname of one of his favourite characters – Marvel’s Luke Cage. This obsession is also the reason why Nicolas holds the record for the most expensive comic book sale ever ($2.1million for his near-pristine copy of Action Comics No.1 – the first appearance of Superman), and why his youngest son’s name is Kal-El (Superman’s birth name on Krypton).
But more importantly, “Cage” is simply far more action-orientated. Nicolas doesn’t have the most athletic of builds, nor a particularly leading-man-friendly face, yet he has earned the main roles in many an action film. Nicolas Kim Coppola just wouldn’t have the same credibility.
Jean-Claude Van Damme – Jean-Claude Camille François Van Varenberg (October 18th, 1960)
Presumably suffering from a similar predicament to Nicolas Cage (born ‘Coppola’), Jean-Claude Camille François Van Varenberg (JCCFVV) decided to alter his name to the snappier Jean-Claude Van Damme (JCVD), foreshadowing the East Coast-based, marijuana smoking wrestler and ECW original Rob Van Dam.
The “Van Damme” actually came from a friend’s name. Jean-Claude took it so he’d sound more “powerful” when he moved to the United States. Within hours of adopting it, he transformed from a “nerdy little kid” into a martial arts machine.
Objectively, “Damme” has a badass ring to it that “Varenberg” lacks. Jean-Claude “Muscles from Brussels” Van Varenberg fails to strike the same note of terror.
Oli Davis
