Old Hollywood Stars Who Were Forced to Live a Double Life

John Garfield brought a rough, modern energy to Four Daughters, The Postman Always Rings Twice, and Body and Soul. He had grown up Jacob Julius Garfinkle in New York’s Jewish Lower East Side, but Warner Bros. decided that name would not appear above its theater marquees.

Changing it was one of Jack Warner’s first orders after Garfield signed in 1937. The actor became John Garfield, a cleaner, less openly Jewish name that still suited his working-class image. Hollywood kept his streetwise intensity while removing the background attached to Garfinkle.