Daedalus Howell: Once upon a ‘name’ in America

Here's to Sergio Leone... maker of violent films, illustrator of children's books|

Whilst slumming at the People’s Cafe in Berkeley, a byline on the freebie library shelf caught my eye. “The Monkey in the Rocket,” a “Mad Men”-era tale of an American space chimp, credits its story to Jean Bethell and the pictures to Sergio Leone.

(The record-needle scratch sound goes here.)

Wait, THE Sergio Leone? The filmmaker behind “A Fist Full of Dollars” and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly?” Did the father of the Spaghetti Western have a sideline illustrating jingoist Space Race propaganda for kids?

As much as I wanted to believe this could be true, I haven’t found enough evidence to support this rather awesome notion. That said, I can’t prove it untrue either. However, I suspect that some poor illustrator just happened to share the same famous name as the man who reinvented America’s favorite film genre. Given the relative disproportion of their fame, I’m sure Leone the children’s book illustrator (he of “Hooray for Henry,The Littlest Angel fame”) was more often confused for the director than the director was for him. The possible awkward moments pile quickly in the imagination.

Let’s envision the illustrator at a cocktail party when some well-wisher says,

“Mr. Leone, I just have to say, I loved ‘Duck, You Sucker!’” and Leone panics and calls his agent, furious about those New York bastards who apparently changed the title of “Uncle Wiggily’s Adventures” without so much as a damn phone call!

It’s a wonder Leone didn’t change his name when his doppelnamen, if you will, released his breakthrough sword and sandal epic, “The Colossus of Rhodes,” in ’61 – an entire year before “The Monkey in the Rocket” was published.

Filmmaker Alan Berliner is no stranger to this phenomenon, which he dubbed “the same-name syndrome” in his documentary “The Sweetest Sound.” In it, Berliner laments “being mistaken for the Belgian filmmaker, Alain Berliner, and often congratulated for having made his film, “Ma Vie en Rose…” among other issues. Berliner eventually musters a guest list of 12 others with the name “Alan Berliner” has them over for a dinner party. The ensuing conversation is like “My Dinner with Andre” to the third power, which is more engaging that it might read.

What’s is a name? Besides being one of the most romantic rhetorical questions of all time (see Romeo, Act II, Scene II of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” to learn that which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.”) what you name your children may long lasting effects. According to Business Insider, “Your child’s name is likely to indicate your child’s socioeconomic status and could potentially affect their future success,” and goes on to cite a variety of infobites such as the notion that 49 percent of teachers make assumptions about children based on their name. For example, Callum, Connor, and Chardonnay (the kid must be from Sonoma) are perceived as troublemakers.

Sergio and Alan weren’t apparently part of the survey, let alone Leone and Berliner. I suppose it could be worse for those with same-name-syndrome – they could be “Uomo senza nome,” a.k.a “The Man with No Name.”

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Daedalus Howell namechecks himself at DHowell.com.

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