For those unfamiliar with the acronym, IMDb is Internet Movie Database.
Why does this site often credit actors twice, once with the character’s name and again with the actor’s name in parentheses?
For example, the IMDb entry for The Godfather shows this:
Richard S. Castellano – Clemenza (as Richard Castellano)
Is it because of variation of the actor’s name?
Actors’ unions have an “official” version of each performer’s name. This is generally expected to be unique, for the purpose of keeping professional credits straight, though there are exceptions.
Consider the example of Harry Dean Stanton. He was credited as Dean Stanton for the first 20 years of his career. Why? Because this guy was already an established working actor, and Harry Dean decided to go by his middle name to avoid confusion. Later, he switched to H.D. Stanton, and finally to the full first-middle-last version we know today. For some actors, using an alternative name like this results in a personal annoyance, when your professional moniker doesn’t reflect how you like to be referred to in the day-to-day. His fellow cast members see him as “Dean” on the call sheet, but then he shows up on set and has to tell everyone, “Call me Harry, I just use my middle name Dean for my career.” When he ultimately switched to a version of his actual name, this probably came as some relief.
Another possible example: Ever wonder what the “F” stands for in “F. Murray Abraham”? Nothing. He was born Murray Abraham but added the F when he became a professional actor. He says it was in honor of his father, but I would speculate there was already a Murray Abraham on the union rolls.
(Sometimes it’s not about a unique name, sometimes it’s just for marketing or ease-of-pronunciation purposes. Lea Michele Sarfati chose to truncate her family name for her professional career, so as not to limit her casting opportunities. And of course Tom Mapother probably wouldn’t have become a giant star if he hadn’t changed to Cruise.)
Anyway, point is, IMDb listings use that singular official name as the heading for the actor’s page. If the actor is credited by another name, even one with a small variation, that gets noted, as you observe.
Go look at Harry Dean Stanton’s IMDb page, and scroll down to the 1960s to see this in operation. And here’s another example: At the beginning of his career, Laurence Fishburne went by Larry. That’s how his name appears in the credits for his early appearances, such as Apocalypse Now. And the IMDb entry for that movie reflects this. But in his personal life, he prefers Laurence, so eventually he changed his screen credit, and now that’s how everyone knows him.
So, yes. “Richard S. Castellano” was the preferred syntax for that actor’s screen credits, but for whatever reason a different version was used for The Godfather, so IMDb shows the variation.
And sometimes an actor’s name is misspelled in the movie credits.
And sometimes they will appear uncredited or under a pseudonym (Robin Williams is credited as Ray D. Tutto in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen).
Yes…
Elizabeth Montgomery was usually credited as “Pandora Spocks” for her performances as Serena in Bewitched, as another example.
Bitsie/Elizabeth Tulloch (Juliette on Grimm and Lois Lane in the Arrowverse) was credited as “Bitsie” but has switched to “Elizabeth” for credit purposes.
Details here:
Brian
The actor who played Julian Bashir (on ST:DS9) was credited as Siddig El Fadil back then, but these days he’s credited as Alexander Siddig, so for older roles, IMDB notes “As Siddig El Fadil”
Huh. Learned my something new for the day. Also, I immediately recognized the surname Mapother, and yep, imdb says they’re cousins:
Most famous for playing Ethan on Lost, but I didn’t look him up (and thus learn his name) until Another Earth.
Thandiwe Newton is going to have a lot of that now she’s reverted to her true spelling.
Thanks, Dopers. After wondering about that for years, I noticed the name variations for the first time when I pasted Castellano’s credit into the OP.
Looks like blacklisted writers are given the same treatment. The film Terror in a Texas Town has these credits:
Dalton Trumbo – (written by) (front Ben Perry)
Ben Perry – (front for Dalton Trumbo) (as Ben L. Perry)
Michael J. Fox’s middle name is actually Andrew.
Fox was discovered by producer Ronald Shedlo and made his American television debut in the television film Letters from Frank , credited under the name “Michael Fox”. He intended to continue to use the name, but when he registered with the Screen Actors Guild, which requires unique registration names to avoid credit ambiguities (and the possibility that royalty checks would be sent to the wrong actors), he discovered that Michael Fox, a veteran character actor, was already registered under the name.[3] As he explained in his autobiography Lucky Man: A Memoir and in interviews, he needed to come up with a different name. He did not like the sound of “Michael A. Fox” during a time when “fox” meant “attractive” and because his “A” sounded too much like the Canadian “eh?” Fox also disliked the sound of “Andrew” or “Andy”, so he decided to use a different middle initial and settled on “J”, as a tribute to actor Michael J. Pollard.[6]
Amusingly, the original Michael Fox was in several episodes of “Science Fiction Theatre” - which George McFly was an avid fan of.