It was like a little wink to film nerds that also fit in with the film's other false-identity-related hijinks. When John Cleese wrote and produced "A Fish Called Wanda" (1988), giving himself the chance to be a romantic lead for the first time in his career, he opted to give himself a suitable romantic-lead name.

And, so, he named his character, a meek lawyer who boldly embraces life after being seduced by a beautiful con artist, Archie Leach.

"I feel this film is as near as I'll ever get to being Cary Grant," he told People magazine just prior to the film's release in 1988.

Putting aside the film's darker elements (a lot of sex and murder), "A Fish Called Wanda" is the sort of screwball comedy that would fit nicely into Grant's catalog. It's full of the same sort of witty romantic banter and comedic misunderstandings that made "His Girl Friday" (1940) and "Bringing Up Baby" (1938) into cinematic classics.

It was also filled with people taking on fake identities — a petty criminal posing as an ex-spy and, most notably, the con artist, Wanda (Jamie Lee Curtis, "Halloween," 2018), posing as a law student to manipulate Archie.

Picking the name Archie Leach specifically for use in a film is a bit ironic, since Grant originally changed it because film execs didn't think it would work in the movie business.

However, decades before Cleese, he had some of his own fun with the name change. In "His Girl Friday," Grant's character refers to a man named Archie Leach (he actually said he "cut his throat," so maybe violence wasn't so far off from Grant's oeuvre), and in his 1944 film "Arsenic and Old Lace," a tombstone appears with the name Archie Leach on it.

These could both have been references to the fact that he legally changed his name from Leach to Grant in 1941, "killing" Leach in the process (figuratively, at least).

Have a question? Email us at questions@tvtabloid.com. Please include your name and town. Personal replies will not be provided.

Have a question? Email us at questions@tvtabloid.com. Please include your name and town. Personal replies will not be provided.