My name is fame
To make it big in Hollywood/Bollywood or showbiz, it does not help to have a clunky, double/triple-barrelled or boring name like -- yawn -- Rajeev Bhatia (Akshay Kumar) or Spangler Arlington Brugh (Robert Taylor).

In the early days of Hollywood, in the 1920s, actors invariably found themselves a sexy, captivating screen name hoping it would catapault them to fame.

So Rodolpho d'Antonguolla became Rudy Valentino and American moviedom's first sex symbol.

Hispanic actress Margarita Cansino Carmen could never have been Hollywood's love goddess. But as Rita Hayworth she was.

And who can remember Issur Danielovitch Demsky? But we all loved triple-Academy-Award-nominated Kirk Douglas (Michael Douglas ke papa) in It Runs In The Family..

Actors or singers these days don't find it that important to adopt screen names or funky titles. So we have folks like Cameron Diaz (yes, that's her real name) and Halle Berry making it big on their original names, even if they are mouthfuls or a bit strange sounding.

But there are a few, intriguing exceptions:

Ever heard of Thomas Cruise Mapother IV? Yup, Tom Cruise was born with that whopper of a name. Mapother has been handed down to him courtesy his Welsh ancestry. Incidentally from his mom's side, he is related to George III of England.

By contrast his wife Katie's screen name is not very different from what she was born with -- Katherine Noelle Holmes.

But hey. why did name their child Suri? We thinks that if she follows in her parents' footsteps, she is going to need a snappy screem name like her dad.
Photograph: Tom Cruise with wife Katie Holmes and daughter Suri on the sets of the film Rubicon in Berlin in which Cruise is starring as Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, an aristocratic Nazi officer who mounted a failed plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1944 as Germany was losing World War II. Photograph: Sebastian Willnow/AFP/Getty Images

Tom Cruise bowled over by Posh

Tom Cruise so loves Victoria Beckham’s British accent and turn of phrase, that he’s now asking her to give him a few lessons.

A source revealed that the actor has started mimicking words that come out of Posh’s mouth every time she says something ‘really English’.

“Tom thinks her words and phrases are brilliant. Whenever he’s round there and she says something really English he starts mimicking her,” the Daily Express quoted the source, as saying.

“She’ll say things like ‘bloody hell’ and ‘blimey’. And she’ll say ‘come on chaps’ to her sons. Tom loves hearing it all and is building up a bit of an English vocabulary himself,” the source added.

The insider also revealed that though Posh was initially very amused by the way Cruise was enthralled with the way she talks, she’s now getting used to it since Will Smith is apparently as keen on her accent.

“Victoria is amused by his enthusiasm over her everyday chatter. But she’s starting to get used to it – because another friend, Will Smith, also likes taking off her accent and phrases,” the insider said.

Tom Cruise Blackmailed Over Photos

In an age where photographs of celebrity weddings and birthing sell for million, Tom Cruise was asked to pay a hefty one million dollars if he didn't want photos of his wedding with Katie Holmes to hit the headlines.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation announced the arrest of Arizona native David Hans Schmidt in the case, and revealed that the photographs were stolen.
Tattletale website The Smoking Gun says Schmidt is know as the 'Sultan of Sleaze' for his role in the distribution of sex tapes featuring celebrities. He was attempting to re-sell to Cruise a large cache of private photos from the actor's November 2006 wedding to Holmes, that had been stolen from Cruise's home.
When Schmidt made the initial approach earlier this year, Cruise's lawyers contacted the FBI, which then monitored developments and affected the arrest once all the evidence was in.

Schmidt is reported to have been behind the outing of the Paris Hilton sex tapes, which had spread virus-like across the Internet some years back. The Smoking Gun says Schmidt routinely contacts celebrities offering to sell them their own private photos and videos, while warning them that if they did not ante up, he would splash it all over the media.

Schmidt, whose indictment has been sealed, has also been identified as the agent for Kimberly Bell, ex-girlfriend of baseball star Barry Bonds.
Bell features, nude, in the November issue of Playboy, and will soon feature in an article that details her personal and sexual relationship with Bonds.
Smoking Gun says Schmidt has in the past peddled pornographic material relating to the likes of Jamie Fox, Gennifer Flowers, Tonya Harding, Fred Durst and Amber Frey.

At some point, he is learnt to have attempted to sell topless photographs of Jessica Lynch, the US soldier who was briefly held as a prisoner of war in Iraq and whose 'heroic rescue' later turned out to be a Pentagon plant.