“The contracts also usually gave the studios control of the stars’ public image to further their publicity campaigns for their movies. This meant, in practice, that studios could script stars’ interviews and dictate their public utterances, photographic poses, and gossip-column items. They could order them to alter their facial appearance, hair color, biographical details, and, as was commonly done, their name. Issur Danielovitch, for example, had his name changed to Kirk Douglas, Marion Morrison to John Wayne, and Emanuel Goldenberg to Edward G. Robinson.” ~ Edward Jay Epstein, The Big Picture (buy it at amazon)