Posted by Jay Livingston
In a post a while ago, I said that it seemed to me that far fewer actors are changing their names. Not like the old days, when Margarita Carmen Cansino became Rita Hayworth. I was reminded of this again reading the obits for Tony Curtis, born and raised in the Bronx as Bernie Schwartz.
If a kid named Bernie Schwartz today wanted to be an actor, would he change his name? It’s a ridiculous question, of course. Nobody these days names their son Bernie. Bernard is barely in the top 1000 names for boys. When Curtis, er I mean Schwartz, was born, it was #46.
He may have changed his name, but he never lost his accent, as the obits were quick to point out, quoting famous lines like, “"Yondah lies the castle of my fad-dah,” which Snopes says is for real, from “The Black Shield of Falworth.” The obit and NJ.com has a version from a different film, “
Son of Ali Baba”: “Dis is duh palace ah my fadda, an’ yonda lies duh Valley ah duh Sun.”You wouldn’t hear that today. My impression is that although actors now retain their ethnic names, they lose any ethnic or regional accent they might have, at least they do if they want to play big roles. With comedy roles and character parts, a regional accent adds “color” even if it’s the wrong color. (Cab drivers in movies often have a working-class New York accent, even if they are driving their cab in Chicago or Atlanta.) But if you want to be a star, it’s best to be able to sound like a generic, unplaceable American.
Maybe that has always been true; maybe even fifty or seventy years ago, Curtis would have been a glaring exception. Can you think of stars from whatever era who, like Curtis, spoke with an identifiable ethnic or regional accent yet played roles outside of those boundaries?
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