Become Famous Through Entertainment

Become Famous Through Entertainment
Fame is a marvelous thing, and though not quite easy to achieve, definitely quite accessible through many a sphere. The sphere of politics, for example, accords a whole lot of fame as does acting, athletics as well as cookery and music among many others. Nevertheless, how does the field of entertainment make one famous? 

For starters, let us consider the enormous number of aspiring actors in this industry and the very few successful ones. In such a situation, you must be phenomenal at your art to be famous. This requires you to be diligent, hard working, properly trained and thoroughly experienced. In addition, an impressive stage name works wonders as well. 

The act of adopting stage names has evolved through the ages. Stage names themselves are embraced for multiple reasons. While some have employed stage names for the sake of a adopting a different identity others have done so because their actual names sounded similar to another famous personality’s. Still others have done so to enhance their glamour and make themselves more memorable. An example can be made of Ray Charles, who was originally called Ray Robinson but had to adopt a pseudonym because there was already a boxer named “Sugar” Ray Robinson. Of course “’Sugar’ Ray Robinson” also happened to be a stage name.

Many-a-times people have been seen to use names that sound more English or are anglicized to a great extent. Earlier, in the American Vaudeville age many people who had migrated from other countries used pseudonyms to hide their immigrant identities. Thus, the music great Robert Zimmerman is known to everyone as Bob Dylan and lead vocalist Farrokh Bulsara from the musical group ‘Queen’ is popularly known as Freddie Mercury. The talented Mel Brooks was actually Melvin Kaminsky and even Woody Allen changed his name from Allen Stewart Konigsberg. Florencia Bisenta de Casillas Martinez Cardona also changed hers, understandably, to Vicky Carr. Incidentally, many ballet artists adopted more Russian-sounding names around the same American Vaudeville period since Russian Ballerinas were highly esteemed at the time.

Just as Norma Jean, immortalized through her movie-career as well as Elton John’s first rendition of Candle in the Wind, had adopted the stage name of Marilyn Monroe, so had Ozzy Osborne, who was actually named Jonathan Michael Osborne. Monroe’s name carried with it a musical quality accorded by the rhetorical device of alliteration, the use of similar first syllables in each word, and was much more appealing. Certain others like Robert Redford, Billy Baldwin, Alda Alda, Billy Bragg also benefited from this practice which made them more attractive, as did the cartoon characters of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. 

You have the also the option of adopting a single-word as your stage name. Twiggy, originally born Leslie Hornby was pioneer in the field of one-word names, starting this trend as early as the 60s. In the 70s, we had Cher, originally Cherilyn Sarkisian followed in her footsteps. This of course, was more popularized later by the illustrious artists Madonna, Sting and Prince. The trend is still much in vogue and Usher, actually called Usher Raymond IV, as well as Seal, whose actual name is Sealhenry Olusegun Olumide Samuel, are glaring examples. For all of these people the use of a lone word allowed them to disengage from the usual multitude of people bearing two-word names, a tradition it would be well worth your while to follow. In contrast to this there exists another tradition as well though, that of using three-worded names. ‘Sugar’ Ray Robinson who is actually Walker Smith Jr. and has been mentioned earlier, and Sara Jessica Parker make for a prominent examples. James Earl Jones (actually Todd Jones) and Anna Nicole Smith ( originally Vicky Hogan) also fall in the same category. 

In a departure from the above, people have been seen to do rather eccentric things to their names. Take for example the adding of the word “the” to the wrestlers Jesse “the body” Ventura and Tony the Tiger. Still others managed to add attractive words to their names to give these more appealing. Thus Steven Demetri Georgiou became Cat Stevens, Courtney Michelle Harrison became Courtney Love, Judy Cohen became Juice Newton and Eleanora Fagan Gough became Billie Holiday and the list continued. Add to this the emergence of curious names used by hip-hop artists Snoop Dogg, who is actually Cordazer Calvin Broadus and P. Diddy, born Sean John Combs. Bo Diddly, Ice-T, born Tracy Marrow and Biggie are such others.

Given the background of stage names then we are naturally led toward speculation of what the future holds. Perhaps the ultramodern aspect of super cool stage names would lead to the techno-friendly futuristic usage of numbers. Thus we have a 2Pac who obviously likes his name Tupac Shakur a little less as does Curtis Jackson who calls himself 50Cent. If that isn’t enough we may always refer to Aaron D. Yates, who is called Tech N9ne as inspiration for more numerical names. 

Since assuming a stage name doesn’t require a legal change your actual name it is quite a simple and effective transformation and can make all the difference to a budding artist. You could also take cue from some celebrities who have legally changed their names later on and do the same although not all of them have. So go ahead and choose an impressive pseudonym but make sure it’s something memorable. But remember, it is of vital importance that you concentrate on your art. Only if you display a great amount of talent, whether in acting, music or anything else, will a stage name really help.