The ancestry of British actress Catherine Zeta Jones is Welsh and Irish, but people keep claiming she's part Greek, and it was just repeated in a Jeopardy question. The source is an old CNN interview she did with Larry King which was transcribed online like this:Zeta is my grandmother's name, who is of north Greek origin. But Zeta is a Greek name. And everyone thinks that I just put Zeta in to spice up Catherine Jones. And that's completely untrue.
But there's a disclaimer at the beginning that says it's a "rush transcript" that "may not be in its final form". If she were saying that her grandmother was Greek, there would be no "But..." after the first sentence. That only makes sense if she's denying having Greek ancestry, which is what she actually said:
Zeta is my grandmother's name, who is of not Greek origin. But Zeta is a Greek name. And everyone thinks that I was, just put Zeta in to spice up Catherine Jones. And that's completely untrue. [...] I've always been called that. And in my school in Wales, Jones is a very, very popular name in Wales. And so there were like three Catherine Joneses in my class, so they always called me Zeta.
It's thought that her last name is "Zeta-Jones", but she added the hyphen later. "Zeta" was originally her middle name and her grandmother's first name, and this is where it actually came from:
"I've been performing since I was 11 years old," said Catherine, named for her maternal grandmother Catherine Fair and her paternal grandmother Zeta Jones (Zeta was the name of a ship that her great-grandfather had sailed on).
Many people have also claimed, with no evidence, that she's Hispanic or even half black because they believe Nordicist stereotypes and can't accept the fact that some Northern Europeans are naturally darker and more "exotic" looking. A sane commenter responds:
Whenever a N.European has darker hair, eyes or complexion, somebody (predictably) uses a stereotype of another ethnic group to suggest they're an "outsider" to their own heritage. Despite popular stereotypes, differences in appearance are normal within any one group due to expected genetic variation within families and their older tribal histories. This is the norm--and not the exception. Anyone proud of their heritage won't like racists taking that from them.
Catherine Zeta Jones is just a dark Brit. That's all.
