There were a lot in the 50’s, like Genevieve and Charo, but I’m sure the trend is much older. [I’m not talking about so far back in history that most people had single names. But you knew that.]
Valentino
Lassie
Adam
I don’t think that Valentino counts, for he billed himself as Rudolph Valentino. I bet you that some performers billed themselves by a single name before the time of the movies, but I’ll wait for Eve to give the definative answer.
Oops, missed this part. That’ll teach me to post smart-ass replies before reading the OP. :smack:
Carry on.
How about Houdini? While there were surely others before him, he may have been the first one-name to be household name throughout the U.S.
Before Houdini occurred to me, I was going to say Liberace. Though I know that the suggestion that he only use the one name came from another pianist that was already famous when Liberace was beginning his career, Paderewsky(sp?).
Michelangelo? Nostradamus? Or did you mean celebrities, not just famous people?
I was going to suggest Houdini, too. At least, if you’re just talking about “entertainers.” Artists have a long history of being referred to by last name only – Mozart, Beethoven, Cezanne, Monet, David, etc. Maybe the distinction you’re looking for is someone who promoted himself as a one-name celebrity.
Socrates and Aristophanes.
Oh by the way, during those times they also call themselves “son of” so and so. Later it was shortened to al- or O’.
In entertainment, a case might be made for Sitting Bull who toured with Buffalo Bill Cody. While he had two names I don’t think anyone called him “Sitting” as a first name or Mr. Bull in more formal settings. It functioned as a single unit.
Regarding Houdini, I glanced at a couple of stories about him in our (newspaper) morgue and the stories listed him as Harry Houdini.
My own vote is an obscure 1940s Universal contract player who was billed simply as Acquanetta. She was born Burnuacquanetta on an Arapahoe reservation in Wyoming and was one of the top-salaried models in New York before getting a gig with Universal.
Universal invented a Latin Bombshell background for her (she was billed as “The Venezuelan Volcano” – no, I swear I didn’t make that up) – and billed her as Acquanetta, no other name. She appeared in such deathless classics as Captive Wild Woman and Tarzan and the Leopard Woman. Her last known film was Callaway Went Thataway in 1951.
Jesus?
Alla Nazimova (neé Mariam Leventon) was known only as “Nazimova” in most of her movies, from The Heart of a Child (1920) to Since You Went Away (1944).
Italian stage actress Maria Falconetti was billed simply as “Mlle. Falconetti” in the silent classic The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928).
Boris Karloff was only “Karloff” in The Black Cat (1934), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), and The Raven (1935).
Another Italian actress, Alida Valli, was credited as “Valli” in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Paradine Case (1947) and in The Third Man (1949).
Thought I should mention Garbo. (When people start calling you by one name because everybody knows whom they mean, that’s real fame. When you just announce that you’re now only one name, that’s egotistical affectation.)
Same goes for when one’s name is replaced by a symbol.
Now, be fair, that was actually a clever way for Prince to get around the label actually owning his stage name and all rights thereto.
“Prince” wasn’t his stage name, it was his real name – Prince Rogers Nelson.
Great Garbo was never billed just as “Garbo”.
I’m guessing the first one-named performer of the “modern era” was the French tragedienne Rachel (1821–