I wanted to come back to this for the exception that proves the rule: successful actor Mark Strong – who did that SHERLOCK HOLMES movie with Robert Downey Jr before doing that ROBIN HOOD movie with Russell Crowe before doing ZERO DARK THIRTY and KICK ASS and KINGSMAN and so on – isn’t really using a stage name; he really used to be a little kid named ‘Mark Strong’.
But he was born Marco Giuseppe Salussolia, and his mom changed his name way back when “to help him fit in with his peers.”
So, what, is it fair to figure that a stage name would’ve been a help to him – only it’s been such a help to him in his personal life that reality beat him to it?
I like that NFL sideline reporter Jill Arrington is actually Tiffany Arrington, but goes by Jill because it’s hard enough for female sports reporters to get taken seriously as it is, being “Tiffany” apparently doesn’t help.
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On the other end of things, Thomas Elliott III got credited as Tom Bridgett before he started getting credited as Thomas Jane, because, what, he’s so masculine that he enjoys playing a straight-ahead leading-man action hero with a girl’s name?
At the other end of the spectrum, how about Robert Sean Leonard – you know, the stage name of Robert Lawrence Leonard? I mean, the guy was going to have three male names in a row; it was just a question of which.
He’s still legally RLL - he borrowed his brother’s name for his stage name. No idea why. I guess it is just a bit more sonorous. Three two-syllables is clunky meter.
But we all get why David Adkins gets credited on television and in movies under his stage name of “Sinbad”, right? “Sinbad” stands out. “Sinbad” is memorable. I mean, you’ve maybe already forgotten his bland legal name from all the way back in that first sentence – but “Sinbad” is in your head, now.
Say, how about actors Costas Mandylor and Louis Mandylor? How helpful is it that they took matching stage names, so we can still tell that they’re brothers?
