The Full Names of 37 One-Name Celebrities
From A-Z, here are the full names of some of your favorite mononymous stars—and the reasons they dropped the rest of their names.
From A-Z, here are the full names of some of your favorite mononymous stars—and the reasons they dropped the rest of their names.
Think about "Tears of a Clown" by Smokey Robinson & The Miracles. Think about "Cool Jerk" by The Capitols. Or "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" by Stevie Wonder. Or "Rubberband Man" by The Spinners. All those mighty soul songs share a funky undercurrent, a four
Dorothy "Dot" Rhone, a quiet girl from Liverpool, England, grew up with an emotionally distant mother and an abusive father who drank. She was terribly shy, introverted, and withdrawn, and she thought her nose was too big, going so far as to sleep with a
Dateline: Novi, Michigan – Motor City Comic Con 2012. Your intrepid reporter and her ever-patient husband/photographer brave the hordes of Darth Vaders, Dudley Do-Rights, and Daryl Dixons to bring you 11 celebrities posing with mental_floss: 1. Sean Patri
Last Thursday, This American Life LIVE played in movie theaters around the US, Canada, and Australia, beamed live via satellite from a stage performance in New York City. For public radio nerds, this is pure gold: two hours of This American Life perform
The date was March 29, 1989. The most famous comedienne in the history of show business was about to make her final TV
Freedom of speech? Not if it's deemed "obscene." These celebrities found that out the hard way. Though they weren't all convicted, they did end up fighting costly battles in court and had their names dragged through the mud, though in some cases - looking
1. Ludwig van Beethoven At age 26, the great German composer and pianist began to lose his hearing. His problems began with a severe form of tinnitus, and it's thought they may have been complicated by syphilis, lead poisoning, typhus, or possibly his hab
Based on the pandemonium Elvis Presley had generated the last two times he played Jacksonville, Florida, Colonel Tom Parker, his manager, booked him for six shows over two days in August of 1956. All six shows would be at the Florida Theater, a medium-siz
The man who achieved television immortality as Fred Mertz on I Love Lucy was born in Burlington, Iowa, on February 26, 1887.
1. Will
The conclusion to our two-part exclusive interview with Trace Beaulieu, formerly of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and now with Cinematic Titanic Read yesterday's part one
Van Halen is back! Featuring David Lee Roth and three Van Halens, the band has reunited for a North American tour, and their new record was released just three days ago. So I thought I'd take a look back at the band's infamous early-1980s tour rider*, t
n 1932, Jerome Howard joined The Three Stooges comedy team
Prolific character actor Harry Morgan has left us after a brief bout with pneumonia. Depending upon your age, you might remember Morgan as Pete Porter, the next-door neighbor on December Bride (a role that he played so well he was given a spin-off series,
Samuel "Shemp" Horwitz was born on March 17, 1895. He was the third in the line of five consecutive brothers born to Sol and Jennie Horwitz. The name "Shemp" was derived from a mispronunciation (as so many family nicknames seem to be). Sam's mother would
By the 1963 Christmas season, The Beatles were already the biggest musical stars in the history of British entertainment. Which makes their live "The Beatles Christmas Shows" of 1963 and 1964 even more bizarre.
Set your DRVs for "Trek Nation" tonight (November 30, 2011) at 8pm ET/PT on the Science Channel. If you're going to watch one documentary about Star Trek, it should be Trekkies. But if you're going to watch two, the second should be Trek Nation, premi
As we've all heard, Andy Rooney has retired. But his body of work is vast, including 1,097 of his iconic 60 Minutes commentaries. I have a love-hate relationship with those commentary pieces -- I've actually watched 60 Minutes for many years, and while
1. Bobby Fischer and Barbra Streisand Barbra Streisand, the future Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony winner, actually attended the same Brooklyn high school as Bobby Fischer, who at the time was already competing in and winning international chess tournaments
Some of the most important literary figures of the last century had previously made a name for themselves in athletics. Here are the stories of a halfback who became a beatnik, an Olympic-hopeful wrestler who became leader of the Merry Pranksters, and nin
There's an adage they give you when you receive your name badge at the door of Writer Land: "You only compete with yourself." While most authors hold true to this (at least in public), there are those who make time to spend bashing their fellow wordslinge
As the saying goes, "Everybody's gotta start somewhere," but during these trying times, many people are simply looking to start. It's comforting, then, to hear about the unusual first jobs of people who went on to bigger and better and more lucrative thin
When Janis Joplin died of a heroin overdose on October 4, 1970, she left behind a will that included an offbeat stipulation: $2500 to fund a hard-partying wake in her memory.