[El Gran Salseron]

"I've read many times that his real name is Jerry Rivers. Is that a joke? "

Yes, it's a joke. His real name is Gerald King. :-)

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

Okay, so that's a joke, too? (I'm so confused. LOL)

I looked it up on snopes.com - no mention of his name ever having been "King".

Yearbook photos from Geraldo's high school and college (the University of Arizona) demonstrate that his name was not Jerry Rivers: his given name was indeed Gerald, and his surname alternated between the family name, Rivera, and his mother's "continentalized" spelling of it, Riviera.