Let’s talk about pseudonyms. Stage names. Monikers that performers might adopt early in their careers for some reason, and then find it difficult or impossible to change because they get well-known and nobody even knows their real names.
Nico, for example, born October 16, 1938 in Germany, was a famous avant-garde rock singer in the 1960s and 70s. Her real name was Christa Päffgen. She was part of the Velvet Underground band and toured the world. She was also a model, and that’s where her stage name came from; a photographer (Herbert Tobias) was photographing Päffgen when she was just 16 and gave her the name as a nickname. After that she kept it. She appeared in a few movies as well, also as Nico.
In a sad coincidence, her father died when she was 2 of some sort of head injury when he was in the army. There are several stories about what happened, and nobody knows which is true. Nico was on vacation in Spain in 1988 and went for a bicycle ride. She fell off her bike and was found unconscious. They took her to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with heat stroke – but she died a few hours later; she had a head injury from the accident that caused a cerebral hemmorrhage.
Not all stage names are monosyllables. On October 16, 1952 in India, Mohan Rangachari was born. He grew up to be an actor, screenwriter, and playwright, but not under his own name. Everybody knew him as Crazy Mohan. He wrote several hit plays and founded his own acting troupe, Crazy Creations. His stage name came from his first full-length play: Crazy Theives in Paalavakkam. In addition to writing plays and films (mostly comedies), he was a painter, producing 60+ works of art, as well as a poet. He wrote at least one Venba (a Tamil poetry form) every day, and by the time he passed away in 2019 had penned over 40,000.
Some stage names only exist in new forms of media. Charles Marvin Green, Jr. was born October 16, 1950. He lived a completely ordinary life, apparently devoid of any sort of performing, until he was 57 years old and with his son Michael, created a YouTube channel, The Angry Grandpa Show. Green was the star, and became Angry Grandpa. His videos usually featured some sort of tantrum; he would react angrily to some new song he heard, destroy a kitchen appliance that frustrated him, or smash a television if his favorite team lost a big game. He attracted a millions of followers, and his videos began appearing on other media too. He and his son monetized the channel, and in Angry Grandpa’s only non-angry role, accepted a new house and a new car as gifts from his son. The Angry Grandpa Show still exists on YouTube even though Green died in 2017; his son still posts posthumous videos that were never released.
I think the lesson here is that if you know someone whose birthday is today, check to see if the name you know them by might be a pseudonym! Like Flea, the bass player for The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Or Loreen, the Swedish singer who’s won the Eurovision Song Contest not once but twice. I think those might not be their real names either — and today’s their birthday.
