Celebrity Quiz
Fame hides some unexpected CVs, from laboratory work to university degrees.
A celebrity quiz with answers that skips the gossip. It is about stage names, earlier jobs and the qualifications some famous actors and musicians earned away from the spotlight.
Did you know?
- The word 'paparazzi' comes from a film. In Federico Fellini's 'La Dolce Vita', released in 1960, a pushy news photographer is called Paparazzo. Within a few years the plural form of his surname was being used in several languages for photographers who follow famous people.
- Florence Lawrence, the early film star, was also an inventor. A keen motorist, she designed a mechanical arm that signalled which way a car was about to turn, and a sign that flipped up when the driver braked. She never patented either idea.
- Mayim Bialik, known for playing a scientist in a long-running television comedy, is one in real life. She completed a PhD in neuroscience at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2007, having first become known as a child actor in the early 1990s.
How people become famous
The word celebrity comes from the Latin celebritas, meaning fame or a crowded gathering. Being widely known is nothing new, but modern celebrity depends on mass media: first newspapers and photography, then film, radio and television, and now the internet. Each new medium created its own kind of star and its own way for audiences to feel that they knew someone they had never met.
The invention of the film star
The earliest film companies did not name their actors, partly to keep wages low. That changed around 1910, when the producer Carl Laemmle publicised the actress Florence Lawrence by name; she is often called the first movie star. Fan magazines soon followed. By the 1930s Hollywood studios controlled their stars closely under long contracts, choosing their roles, shaping their public image and sometimes inventing entirely new names and life stories for them.
Why stage names exist
Performers change their names for many reasons: to be easier to remember, to keep family life private or simply because the name is already taken. Actors' unions do not allow two members to work under the same name. That is why Michael Douglas, on joining when another Michael Douglas was already registered, became Michael Keaton, and why Emily Stone, finding her own name in use, chose to be known as Emma Stone.
Fame in the digital age
The internet changed the route to fame again. In the late 2000s singers began to be discovered through home-made videos posted online rather than through talent scouts; the Canadian singer Justin Bieber was signed after a manager came across his clips in 2008. Performers could also speak to fans directly, without magazines or television. The word 'influencer' entered everyday use for people known mainly through social media. Traditional honours such as major awards still matter, but audiences now help decide who becomes famous.