"I'm a star. Star, star, STAR!!!"

Tomorrow is the beginning of Turner Classics Movies's Summer Under the Stars festival, where each day's schedule focuses on one movie star. Looking at TCM's monthly guide, we learn the real names of some of those stars. Some, like Katharine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, James Stewart and Gregory Peck, didn't have to wander very far off, having started life as, respectively, Katharine Houghton Hepburn, Humphrey DeForest Bogart, James Maitland Stewart, and Eldred Gregory Peck and yes he did hate the name Eldred. In those days 'ethnic' names were a no-no and so Jacob Julius Garfinkle became John Garfield. Others went for less unwieldy names. At least I think that's why they changed their names. A theater marquee announcing the latest comedy starring Roy Harold Scherer Jr. and Doris Mary Ann Von Kappelhoff just doesn't sound as snappy as one starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day.

My favorite item in the guide was the one about Lee Marvin. Not only are we told that he was a direct descendant of Thomas Jefferson, but his birth name was... Lee Marvin.