1

Norma Jeane Mortenson

Image: Juliane Liebermann

She’s the iconic blonde from 1950s cinema, famously portrayed by artists like Andy Warhol! Films like Some Like It Hot (1959) and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) catapulted her to stardom.

Here’s another hint: This was the real name of the woman who famously sang, " Happy birthday, Mr. President! " You got it?

2

Frances Ethel Gumm

Image: Chau Le

If we say " red ruby slippers, " who comes to mind? Remembered, among other things, for her melodious voice, this actress starred in classics like A Star Is Born (1954) and Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). But the role that made her truly unforgettable was Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz (1939). Have you guessed it yet?

3

Marion Robert Morrison

Image: Ashim D’Silva

A true gem of Hollywood’s Golden Age, this actor became a legend in Westerns and war films. His commanding presence and deep voice made him the perfect fit for roles like Ringo Kid in Stagecoach (1939) and Ethan Edwards in The Searchers (1956). His birth name was Marion Robert Morrison, but in our hearts, he'll forever be "The Duke."

4

Bernard Herschel Schwartz

Image: Jordan Whitfield

With his bright smile and clean-cut style, he was considered one of the most handsome actors of the 20th century. Bernard Herschel Schwartz starred alongside the blonde from our first entry in the legendary Some Like It Hot (1959) . One of the highlights of this blue-eyed star’s career was his versatility, as he showcased his talent in both dramatic and comedic roles.

5

Margarita Carmen Cansino

Image: Brady Bellini

If anyone ever blended talent and beauty to perfection, it was her! One of the most celebrated stars of the 1940s, she rose to fame with the 1942 film You Were Never Lovelier , but her most iconic role was in Gilda (1946) . Her elegant presence and striking red hair made her an unforgettable symbol of the silver screen. In addition, she also had a short marriage to the very famous Orson Welles. Who is she?

6

Issur Danielovitch

Image: Austrian National Library

Maybe his real name might not ring a bell, but his stage name is legendary! His career took off in the 1940s and 1950s, with tough-guy roles that made him stand out, like his performance in Champion (1949), where he portrayed a talented boxer. As a final clue, we can't forget his unmistakable cleft chin!

7

Norma Jeane Mortenson: Marilyn Monroe

Image: Susi Kleiman

Norma Jeane Mortenson was the birth name of the iconic and incomparable Marilyn Monroe! That’s right—the famous actress was born with that name on June 1, 1926, in Los Angeles, California. As her Hollywood career took off, she changed her name to Marilyn Monroe, inspired by Broadway star Marilyn Miller , a celebrated actress and dancer of the 1920s and early 1930s.

8

Frances Ethel Gumm: Judy Garland

Image: Aman

The legendary star we know as Judy Garland was actually born Frances Ethel Gumm on June 10, 1922, in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Coming from a show-business family, she received a stage name at the tender age of 13. That's right—by that age, she had already signed her contract with MGM.

9

Marion Robert Morrison: John Wayne

Image: Eniko Polgar

Marion Robert Morrison was the birth name of one of Hollywood's most beloved and famous actors—the incredible John Wayne . He changed his name when he was still young in the early 1930s , at the start of his career, something that was very common at the time. And who chose his legendary stage name? That would be Fox Studios !

10

Bernard Herschel Schwartz: Tony Curtis

Image: Levi Meir Clancy

Bernard Herschel Schwartz may be a difficult name to remember, which is why this iconic actor changed it to Tony Curtis. Born in New York in 1925, he had a passion for acting from a young age. However, Hollywood wasn't his first career path—before pursuing acting, Curtis joined the Navy during World War II!

11

Margarita Carmen Cansino: Rita Hayworth

Image: Unseen Histories

We all remember the iconic Rita Hayworth , but many don’t know her real name—Margarita Carmen Cansino! Quite different, right? Why did she change her name? Well, when Margarita signed a contract with Columbia Pictures in the late 1930s, the studio believed she needed a shorter, more artistic, and memorable stage name. And so, Rita Hayworth was born—a star who would become an indelible part of American film history.

12

Issur Danielovitch: Kirk Douglas

Image: Natalie Parham

"Issur Danielovitch" may sound exotic, but it was the birth name of the legendary star we know as Kirk Douglas . Before rising to fame as an actor and film producer, Issur worked various jobs to help support his family. In 1940 , he made the bold decision to move to Hollywood and pursue his dream career: acting. It was then that his great stage name was born.

1

$125 million for a Grade-school math error

Image: Aaron Lefler

Imagine losing a hugely expensive spacecraft due to a simple mix-up between English and metric measurements . That is exactly what happened to NASA in 1999 when a Mars orbiter designed by Lockheed Martin was lost in space.

The confusion caused a malfunction on the $125 million craft, resulting in the probe’s loss. Although it was unusual for Lockheed to use English measurements for a NASA design (since NASA had stipulated using metric measurements for many years), there were still several instances where the error should have been caught but wasn’t.

2

Toys ‘R’ Us blunder

Image: Taylor Heery

If you think an action figure of a drug dealer isn’t the best idea for a toy store , you’re not alone. Yet, for some reason, Toys "R" Us decided otherwise in October 2014, possibly hoping to cash in on the massive success of the Breaking Bad TV series.

Unsurprisingly, the giant toy retailer was forced to pull from its shelves four collectible dolls based on characters from the AMC hit show, each doll featuring a detachable sack of cash and a bag of meth.

3

Apple Maps' rocky beginnings

Image: CardMapr.nl

When Apple decided to launch its own map application on iOS devices after a conflict with Google in 2012, users quickly realized that the Apple app was not nearly as launch-ready as it should have been .

Locations were mislabeled, roads were missing, and it occasionally steered people in entirely the wrong direction. The problem was eventually, though largely, resolved, but it was an embarrassing misstep for a company known for never launching a product before it was as near-perfect as possible.

4

Bank of America debit card fee

Image: Ali Mkumbwa

Back in 2011, when the backlash against the banking industry had not yet reached its boiling point, Bank of America announced it would charge customers $5 per month to use their debit cards .

It was a bad business decision. More than 300,000 people signed an online petition, and Fox Business Network’s Gerri Willis cut up her debit card on air. The bank pointed to federal regulations as the reason for the charge but ultimately capitulated to consumer demand after a month before the fees went into effect.

5

$33 airline tickets from Toronto to Cyprus

Image: Miguel Ángel Sanz

If buying a business class ticket regularly priced at $2,558 for just $33 sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Except in 2006, when an Alitalia employee accidentally forgot to input two extra zeros when pricing business-class tickets from Toronto to Cyprus.

Due to the exchange rate on that day and the blunder, hundreds of buyers managed to snag fares for just $33. The airline honored those deals, accepting the heavily discounted price for the 509 people who purchased tickets before the error was detected.

6

A $70 million comma

Image: Nattipat Vesvarute

As the folks at NASA and Alitalia have shown us, small errors can lead to costly mistakes. The following blunder comes courtesy of Lockheed Martin , which issued a contract to a customer with a missing comma in the sale price .

The astute customer held the aerospace company to the contract, costing Lockheed Martin $70 million for a C-130J Hercules aircraft in June 1999.

7

Sears misses the ship

Image: Estefania Cortes

A retail giant that faced a situation similar to the one Kodak faced—embrace the new and unknown or cling to the old, successful recipe—Sears sold everything from socks to tires via mail order, shipping across the U.S.

Choosing to stick with the old method, the company ended its catalog and delivery business in 1993 . In 1994, Amazon was founded , filling the business void that Sears had just created. The rest is history.

8

Passing on Microsoft

Image: Jaime Marrero

$60 million might seem like a lot of money to us regular folks, but for someone with very deep pockets like Texas businessman and two-time U.S. presidential candidate Ross Perot, it wasn’t all that much.

In 1979, he was offered the chance to buy Microsoft for that sum. However, his final offer to the tech company was just $15 million, and as a result, the Texan missed out on the opportunity to own what would become one of the biggest companies in the world .

9

Blackberry sticks with the old

Image: Thai Nguyen

Another case of a brand sticking with the old instead of embracing the new, BlackBerry was all the rage at the start of the 21st century— until Steve Jobs came along with the Apple iPhone .

While BlackBerry Messenger was extremely popular, with over 80 million users worldwide, the device lacked the new touchscreen functionality and sleek design of the Apple product. From being a market leader, BlackBerry’s market share plummeted to 0.2% by 2016.

10

RadioShack’s downfall

Image: Jelleke Vanooteghem

Not so long ago, RadioShack was a familiar presence on the streets and the go-to place for buying batteries and electronics. But it was that same brick-and-mortar presence, coupled with a reluctance to embrace e-commerce , that ultimately led to its demise .

Eventually, poor profit margins on what they could sell, combined with a loan they couldn’t repay, brought down what was once the go-to place for electronics.

1

Whitney Houston (1963–2012)

Six Grammys, 25 Grammy nominations, a No. 1 debut album, three No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 singles, and over 220 million records sold worldwide—and she did it all before she turned 49. Born in 1963, Whitney Houston had a unique power to captivate fans and critics alike with her once-in-a-generation voice, with songs like "How Will I Know," "I Will Always Love You," and much more, becoming one of the most-awarded female artists of all time .

But in February 2012, after years of substance abuse and personal struggles, she was found unconscious in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton and died shortly after. Houston was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2020, eight years after her death.

2

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991)

Freddie Mercury’s career lasted barely two decades, but his voice and iconic stage presence still live on today. He was born in 1946 in Zanzibar, then a British protectorate. He became the lead singer of Queen in 1970 and immediately stood out for his incredible vocal range and songs like "Bohemian Rhapsody," "We Will Rock You," and "Somebody to Love," among many others.

Mercury died in November 1991 at age 45 from bronchial pneumonia caused by AIDS. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducted Queen in 2001.

3

Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970)

It’s impossible not to wonder how much more we could have seen from Jimi Hendrix. Born in Seattle in 1942, Hendrix became one of the most influential electric guitarists ever in less than five years. His 1967 debut album Are You Experienced reached No. 5 on the U.S. Billboard 200, and his 1969 performance at Woodstock is still burned into the memory of rock fans. Some of his most memorable songs include "All Along the Watchtower," "Purple Haze," "Hey Joe," and "Little Wing."

In September 1970, Hendrix died at just 27 after being found unconscious following the consumption of sleeping pills and alcohol. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

4

Jim Morrison (1943–1971)

How could we ever forget Jim Morrison’s unpredictable performances and rebellious behavior on stage? He was born in Florida in 1943 and rose to stardom as the frontman and primary lyricist of the rock band The Doors.

In just a few short years, he became a defining figure of 1960s rock thanks to songs like "Light My Fire," "Break On Through," and "People Are Strange." Morrison suffered heart failure in 1971 and died at age 27. No autopsy was performed, so the exact causes of what happened are still subject to speculation among fans.

5

Carrie Fisher (1956–2016)

Carrie Fisher won everyone’s hearts playing Princess Leia in the first three Star Wars films and became part of pop culture history at just 19. In addition to her acting career, Fisher was a successful writer and screenwriter who worked on the scripts for The Blues Brothers , Sister Act (1992), and The Last Jedi (2017). She was also an accomplished author, best known for her novel Postcards from the Edge (1987), which was adapted for a 1990 film starring Meryl Streep, and was frank about her struggles with substance abuse and mental health.

Fisher came back to the Star Wars franchise as Leia in The Force Awakens (2015) and The Last Jedi . She was also set to appear in The Rise of Skywalker (2019), but suffered a cardiac arrest during a flight to Los Angeles and passed away at age 60. Her mother, legendary actress Debbie Reynolds, died just one day later from a hemorrhagic stroke.

6

Selena (1971–1995)

Selena’s story is perhaps one of the most tragic and disturbing on this list. Hailing from Texas, she was born in 1971 and was already a superstar by age 15. Selena Quintanilla-Pérez was nicknamed the "Queen of Tejano" and helped bring Mexico’s Tejano genre to a much wider audience. Her 1994 album Amor Prohibido became one of the most successful in the genre.

Selena’s 1994 album Live! earned her a Grammy for Best Mexican-American Album. In March 1995, when Selena was only 23, she was shot and killed by Yolanda Saldívar, the former president of her fan club. Her album Dreaming of You was released after she died in 1995 and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Saldívar received a life sentence and remains in prison.

7

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994)

Kurt Cobain’s story began in Aberdeen, Washington, in 1967. He shot to stardom as the lead singer, guitarist, and primary songwriter of the hit 1990s rock band Nirvana . The band became a massive mainstream success following the release of its 1991 album Nevermind , which sold more than 30 million copies.

At the peak of his career, Cobain died by suicide at his Seattle home in 1994, at age 27. Nirvana was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2014.

8

Amy Winehouse (1983–2011)

Amy Winehouse took the music world by storm as a young star blending soul, jazz, R&B, and pop. Born in England in 1983, Winehouse launched her music career at the age of 20 with the release of her debut album, Frank, in 2003.

By 2008, she had released two albums, becoming a global sensation with songs like "Rehab" and "Back to Black," and won five Grammys , including Record of the Year and Song of the Year. Sadly, Winehouse died in July 2011, at the young age of 27, due to alcohol poisoning.

9

Paul Walker (1973–2013)

Paul Walker was born in 1973 and became a major Hollywood star playing Brian O'Conner in the Fast & Furious franchise . He first appeared in the series’ 2001 debut, The Fast and the Furious, and went on to appear in five more installments.

Walker also starred in other popular movies like Varsity Blues (1999) and Into the Blue (2005). In 2013, he died in a car accident at the age of 40 alongside his business partner Roger Rodas. His final scenes in Furious 7 (2015) were completed after his death with the help of his brothers and visual effects.

10

Brittany Murphy (1977–2009)

Brittany Murphy had a thriving career as an actress and voice actress before her sudden death at 32. She broke through playing Tai Frasier in the rom-com Clueless (1995) and later appeared in other films like Girl , Interrupted (1999), 8 Mile (2002), Just Married (2003) , and Sin City (2005). Murphy was also famous for voicing Luanne Platter on the animated sitcom King of the Hill .

In December 2009, she collapsed at her home in Los Angeles and was pronounced dead shortly after. Her death was attributed to pneumonia , anemia, and multiple drug intoxication.