Bizarre Facts About Celebrity Names

Video Transcript

Now, for some real star names. Bela "The Count" Lugosi was actually born in the town of Lugos, Hungary on the Romanian border. He was in the shadow of the Carpathian Mountains, the home of vampires. But, some years later he decided to change his name from Bela Blasko to Bela Lugosi in honor of that hometown. Boris Karloff was born William Henry Pratt. While on a train in Canada he decided to give himself a more awesome name, specifically, that of Boris Karloff. John Carradine was actually Richmond Carradine. Lon Cheney the original was Alonzo Cheney and his son Lon Cheney Jr., was Creighton Cheney. He tried to make it in movies using the name Creighton Cheney, but it wasn't working out. The producers said, "You have to change your name to Lon Cheney, Jr." When he did, he became a star of horror films such as "The Wolfman" and many other intriguing episodes such as in the "Frankenstein" series, "The Ghost of Frankenstein", "The House of Frankenstein" and the, many others. Now, Peter Lorre was born in a Hungarian village with the name Lazlo Lowenstein. He changed it to Peter Lorre, of course was famous for his role in the German classic "M" as a murderer, came to America and was in such films as "Mad Love", "Stranger on the Third Floor" and of course in mysteries such as "The Maltese Falcon" and of course the classic "Casablanca". Always remember, Peter Lorre, very thin, like yours truly. After World War II he went over to Europe to make a film about war refugees entitled "The Lost One". Somewhere along the way out there he contracted an unknown disease that caused his weight to balloon up a hundred pounds. They could never diagnose it and never treat it. When it returned to America he was now seen as a rather corpulent actor in such films as "The Raven", "Comedy of Terrors" and "Quicksand". In 1954 he was actually playing Le Chiffre, the villain, in the very first rendition of "Casino Royale" where the American Barry Nelson was playing 007 James Bond. Throughout that production they always referred to him as "Jimmy" rather than "James". I don't see them doing that with Sean Connery.

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