Many of us on this site and other social media sites do not use our real names. We have personal reasons for doing that. Imagine movies and TV for a moment. Herbie Lipshitz does not want to use his real name. I don't blame him.

Ann-Margret is Ann-Margret Olsson.. Harvey Lee Yeary is Lee Majors

Bernard Schwartz was Tony Curtis .. Louis Lindley Jr. was Slim Pickens

The TV series Lawman was of interest in name changes because Peter Brown is really Pierre Lynn de Loppe. Peggy Castle was born Peggy Thomas Blair. With another Blair around she became Peggy Castle.

Next the famous TV western Gunsmoke.Early on James Aurness was interested in voice acting and it changed into movies. The decision was made to change the family name of Aurness to Arness and both brothers agreed. However, to set himself aside from Jim, Peter changed his acting name to Graves. Also, both brothers were blond so when Gunsmoke came along the studios decided James Arness should have darker hair. His hair was dark brown from then on.

Arness did not want to take the role. He had done 6 projects for John Wayne's Bitjac Productions and he wanted to be a movie actor and not a TV actor. Wayne talked him into it saying his height would hinder him in lead movie projects. In fact, John Wayne (Michael Morrison) did the intro for Arness in the first episode and all went well.

I am re-watching Gunsmoke these days and I learn lots of things. It is a family show really. They have action for everyone but we viewers learn to see the actors as a sort of family. They bicker back and forth in between the action and often one or another of them gets involved with that episode being all about them. I learned that Doc Adams first name is Galen. Something I would never have noticed years ago.

Amanda Blake in Gunsmoke was born Beverly Louise Neill. Her name change was again most likely to Beverly and Neill being very common names at the time. Also, Amanda Blake was married 4 times and she died of AIDES. This was something no one talked about for a while, but people finally got it. Her last husband died of AIDES so this would be a logical reason that she contracted the disease.

Gunsmoke ran for 20 years and expanded from a half hour program into a full hour. It had many guest stars and they brought in several regulars. This is just a bit of what I learn in my TV and movie hobby. Just passing on the info here.