I was perusing the “Jimmy Dean is dead” thread, which by the way has the best pun ever in it…
… and someone made the reference:
which applies to the OTHER James Dean.
It WAS confusing having two celebs with the same name. And, as I look it up, two celebs who did movies-- imdb says The Sausage JD was in a James Bond movie?? If no one had ever called the hipster-er Dean “Jimmy” it would’ve been easier to tell them apart.
I mean, even David Bowie changed his name-- to avoid being confused with a Monkee.
(Cue Office Space quote in 3-2-1…)
So, if you’re an aspiring actor from Akron named William Shatner, it’s already taken. Try using your middle name.
Are there other celebrities with the same or similar names that confound you? Should they be forced to change their name or hair color so we can distinguish tham from each other?
Why don’t all those “Michael Jacksons” (like the beer authority guy) at least go by Mike? If I was an MJ, I’d start going by M. Shirley Jackson, preferring to be confused with an old lady than with that MJ.
There’s Vanessa Williams, the former Miss America who was most recently on “Ugly Betty” and Vanessa Williams who was on “Melrose Place” and a few other TV shows. They also both happen to be African-American.
There’s also Michael Douglas the actor and Mike Douglas the talk show host.
I’m embarrased to admit that for a long time I thought James “JB” Brown, the announcer on The NFL Today, was James “Jim” Brown, the former player for Cleveland. I figured he had retired from football, made a few movies, and now he was announcing games.
In my defense I never thought he sang “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag”.
Apparently, there are two Kenneth Starrs. One is the dean of a law school and former special prosecutor, the other is a “financial adviser to the stars” who was just arrested for embezzling some $30 million.
Amusingly, The Atlantic magazine got the two confused when reporting the latter story.
Well if they are going to join the Screen Actor’s Guild, they have to have unique names. Hence we get people using a seemingly-superfluous middle initial (e.g., Michael J. Fox).
The weird part is that the actor’s full name is Michael Andrew Fox. But he didn’t like the sound of Michael A. Fox so he picked a different initial for his professional name.
Very different actors but when I was younger the similar sounding names of Dirk Bogarde and Humphrey Bogart confused me a little (in the spelling of the former usually thinking him Dirk Bogart)
And on a very vaguely creepy note, last year I was watching Dogfight, and kept having to remind myself that the guy playing Birdlace was not Leo DiCaprio. They don’t even look that much alike; they have very different bone structure, for one thing. It’s mostly a similarity in style. And I may be the only one who sees it, but I do see it. It’s even more VVC when I remember that Leo was just starting to get noticed a year or so before River died, like he took over his spot.
Peter Davison and Bruce Davison (one of which was in the X-Men films and the other once played Dr. Who, and my current computer problems means a trip to Imdb to find out who is who would take 5 minutes, so the heck with it). Despite the very close physical similarity between the two men, they aren’t related. Likewise Karl Urban and Keith Urban (didn’t we do a “they aren’t related but should be” thread awhile back?).
