Robert Cummings
| Robert Cummings | ||
 Cummings in 1956 | ||
| Background information | ||
| Born as: | Charles Clarence Robert Orville Cummings | |
| Other names: | Bob Cummings Blade Stanhope Conway Bryce Hutchens | |
| Born | Jun 9, 1910 Joplin, Missouri U.S. | |
| Died | Dec 02, 1990 - age 79 Los Angeles, California, U.S. | |
| Alma Mater: | American Academy of Dramatic Arts | |
| Spouse(s): |
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| Occupation: | Actor | |
| Years active: | 1931–1990 | |
Charles Clarence Robert Orville Cummings (✦June 9, 1910 – †December 2, 1990) was an American film and television actor who appeared in roles in comedy films such as The Devil and Miss Jones (1941) and Princess O'Rourke (1943), and in dramatic films, especially two of Alfred Hitchcock's thrillers, Saboteur (1942) and Dial M for Murder (1954). He received five Primetime Emmy Award nominations, and won the Primetime Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Single Performance in 1955. On February 8, 1960, he received two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the motion picture and television industries, at 6816 Hollywood Boulevard and 1718 Vine Street. He used the stage name Robert Cummings from mid-1935 until the end of 1954 and was credited as Bob Cummings from 1955 until his death.
Early life
Cummings was born in Joplin, Missouri, a son of Dr. Charles Clarence Cummings and the former Ruth Annabelle Kraft. His father was a surgeon, part of the original medical staff of St. John's Hospital in Joplin, and the founder of the Jasper County Tuberculosis Hospital in Webb City, Missouri. Cummings's mother was an ordained minister of the Science of Mind.
While attending Joplin High School, Cummings was taught to fly by his godfather, aviation pioneer Orville Wright. His first solo was on March 3, 1927. During high school, Cummings gave Joplin residents rides in his aircraft for $5 per person.
When the government began licensing flight instructors, Cummings was issued flight instructor certificate No. 1, making him the first official flight instructor in the United States.
Education
Cummings studied briefly at Drury College in Springfield, Missouri, but his love of flying caused him to transfer to the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh. He studied aeronautical engineering for a year before he dropped out for financial reasons, his family having lost heavily in the 1929 stock market crash.
Cummings became interested in acting while performing in plays at Carnegie Tech, and decided to pursue it as a career. Since the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City paid its male actors $14 a week, Cummings decided to study there. He stayed only one season, but later said he learned "three basic principles of acting. The first – never anticipate; second – take pride in my profession. And third – trust in God. And that last is said in reverence."
Early acting career
Blade Stanhope Conway
Cummings started looking for work in 1930, but couldn't find any roles, forcing him to get a job at a theatrical agency. Realizing that, at the time, "three quarters of Broadway plays were from England" and that English accents and actors were in demand, Cummings decided to cash in an insurance policy and buy a round-trip ticket there.
He was driving a motorbike through the countryside, picking up the accent and learning about the country, when his bike broke down at Harrogate. While waiting for repairs, he devised a plan. He invented the name "Blade Stanhope Conway" and bribed the janitor of a local theatre to put on the marquee: "Blade Stanhope Conway in Candida". He then had a photo taken of himself in front of the marquee and had 80 prints made. In London, he outfitted himself with a new wardrobe, composed a letter introducing the actor-author-manager-director "Blade" of Harrogate Repertory Theatre, and sent it off to 80 New York theatrical agents and producers.
As a result, when Cummings returned to New York, he was able to obtain several meetings.
One of the producers to whom he sent letters, Charles Hopkings, cast him in a production of The Roof by John Galsworthy, playing the role of the Hon. Reggie Fanning. Also in the cast was Henry Hull. The play ran from October to November 1931 and Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times listed "Conway" among the cast who provided "some excellent bits of acting."
In November 1932, "Conway" replaced Edwin Styles in the Broadway revue Earl Carroll Vanities after studying song and dance by correspondence course.
Cummings later encouraged an old drama school classmate, Margaret Kies, to use a similar deception – she became the "British" Margaret Lindsay. He later said pretending to be Conway broke up his first marriage, to a girl from Joplin. "She couldn't stand me."
He was an extra in the Laurel and Hardy comedy film Sons of the Desert (1933) and in the musical short Seasoned Greetings (1933).
Bryce Hutchens
Cummings decided to change his approach, when in the words of one report, "suddenly the bottom dropped out of the John Bull market; almost overnight, demand switched from Londoners to lassoers."
In 1934, Cummings changed his name to "Bryce Hutchens". He appeared under this name in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1934, which ran from January to June in 1934. He had a duet with Vivi Janiss, a native of Nebraska, with whom he sang "I Like the Likes of You". Cummings and Janiss went with the show when it went on tour after the Broadway run, and they married towards the end of the tour.
World War II
In December 1941, Cummings joined the fledgling Civil Air Patrol, an organization of citizens and pilots interested in helping support the U.S. war effort. In February 1942, he helped establish Squadron 918-4 located in Glendale, California, at the Grand Central Air Terminal, becoming its first commanding officer. Two weeks later, he and other members of the squadron went in search of the Japanese submarine that had attacked the oil refinery at Goleta, California. During the war, Cummings participated in search and rescue missions, courier missions, and border and forestry patrols around the Western United States. For this work he used his own aircraft, Spinach I, a 1936 Porterfield, and Spinach II, a Cessna 165 Airmaster. The squadron he established still operates as San Fernando Senior Squadron 35 and is based at Whiteman Airport in Pacoima, Los Angeles. In November 1942, Cummings joined the United States Army Air Forces. During World War II, he served as a flight instructor. After the war, Cummings served as a pilot in the United States Air Force Reserve, where he achieved the rank of captain. Cummings played aircraft pilots in several of his postwar film roles. During the war service, he had small roles in the all-star Forever and a Day (1943) and Flesh and Fantasy (1943), but he was effectively off screen for two years.
Later career
In the late 1960s, Cummings had supporting roles in The Carpetbaggers (1964), Promise Her Anything (1966) and the remake of Stagecoach (1966) (playing the bank embezzler).
Cummings had the lead in Five Golden Dragons (1967) for producer Harry Alan Towers and supported in Gidget Grows Up (1969).
He was in another Broadway play, The Wayward Stork, which had a short run in early 1966. A review in The New York Times said Cummings "is not in top form. He sounded a bit hoarse and somewhat strained. Usually, he is a quite acceptible [sic], breezy farceur."
He guest-starred again on Theatre of Stars ("Blind Man's Bluff"), as well as The Flying Nun ("Speak the Speech, I Pray You"), Green Acres ("Rest and Relaxation"), Here Come the Brides ("The She-Bear"), Arnie ("Hello, Holly"), Bewitched ("Samantha and the Troll"), Here's Lucy ("Lucy's Punctured Romance", "Lucy and Her Genuine Twimby"), and several episodes of Love, American Style.
Cummings's last lead roles on film were in a pair of TV movies, The Great American Beauty Contest (1973) and Partners in Crime (1973).
During the 1970s for over 10 years, Cummings traveled the US performing in dinner theaters and short stints in plays while living in an Airstream travel trailer.
He relayed those experiences in the written introduction he provided for the book "Airstream" written by Robert Landau and James Phillippi in 1984.
Cummings had a cameo in Three on a Date (1978) and appeared in 1979 as Elliott Smith, the father of Fred Grandy's Gopher on ABC's "The Love Boat".
In 1986, Cummings hosted the 15th-anniversary celebration of Walt Disney World on The Wonderful World of Disney.
In 1987, he said, "I wouldn't mind living until I'm 110. I still swim, do calisthenics, and keep fit. I've never been in hospital, except for a hernia operation at one time. People laugh about my using so many vitamins. When I tell them I take 50 liver pills a day, they look surprised, but whether they laugh or not, the thing works." He added, "I'm retired, I live on a pension" and "if I have a problem I get expert counsel, then ask the opinion of a good psychic."
Robert Cummings's last public appearance was on The Magical World of Disney episode "The Disneyland 35th Anniversary Special" in 1990.
Personal life
Marriages
Cummings got married five times and fathered seven children. His first marriage was to Emma Myers, a girl from his hometown. His second marriage was to Vivi Janiss, an actress he met while performing in Ziegfeld Follies. His third wife, Mary Elliott, was a former actress and she ran Cummings's business affairs. They separated in 1968 and had a bitter divorce, during the course of which she accused him of cheating on her with his former secretary Regina Fond and using methamphetamines which she said caused wild mood swings. She also claimed he relied on astrologers and numerologists to make financial decisions with "disastrous" consequences. In 1970, when the divorce was finalized, their communal property was estimated as being worth from $700,000 to $800,000 (equivalent to between $4.9 million and $5.6 million in 2021).
He was married to Gina Fong from 1971 to 1987 and married Martha Burzynski two years later. He died the following year.
Hobbies
He was an avid pilot and owned a number of airplanes, all named "Spinach." He was a staunch advocate of natural foods and published a book on healthy living, Stay Young and Vital, in 1960.
Legal troubles
In May 1948 Hedda Hopper reported that there were four lawsuits against Cummings.
In 1952, Cummings was sued by a writer of "My Hero" who had been fired. In 1952, Cummings was served with papers concerning the suit by LA County Deputy Sheriff William Conroy; Cummings assaulted Conroy and was then sued by the sheriff for damages. Conroy stated that when he tried to serve Cummings with a subpoena the actor gunned the motor of his car and dragged him along the pavement. Cummings explained that he didn't know Conroy was a deputy. Both cases were settled in 1954.
In 1972 he was charged with fraud for operating a pyramid scheme involving his company, Bob Cummings Inc, which sold vitamins and food supplements.
In 1975 he was arrested for being in possession of a blue box used to defraud the telephone company. He avoided trial under the double jeopardy rule.
Reported drug addiction
Despite his interest in health, Cummings was alleged to have been a methamphetamine addict from the mid-1950s until the end of his life. In 1954, while in New York to star in the Westinghouse Studio One production of Twelve Angry Men, Cummings began receiving injections from Max Jacobson, the notorious "Dr. Feelgood". His friends Rosemary Clooney and José Ferrer recommended the doctor to Cummings, who was complaining of a lack of energy. While Jacobson insisted that his injections contained only "vitamins, sheep sperm, and monkey gonads", they actually contained a substantial dose of methamphetamine.
Cummings allegedly continued to use a mixture provided by Jacobson, eventually becoming a patient of Jacobson's son Thomas, who was based in Los Angeles, and later injecting himself. The changes in Cummings's personality caused by the euphoria of the drug and subsequent depression damaged his career and led to an intervention by his friend, television host Art Linkletter. The intervention was not successful, and Cummings's drug abuse and subsequent career collapse were factors in his divorces from his third wife, Mary, and fourth wife, Gina Fong.
After Jacobson was forced out of business in the 1970s, Cummings developed his own drug connections based in The Bahamas. Suffering from Parkinson's disease, he was forced to move into homes for indigent older actors in Hollywood.
Children
Cummings had seven children. His son, Tony Cummings, played Rick Halloway in the NBC daytime serial Another World in the early 1980s.
Political affiliation
Cummings was a supporter of the Republican Party.
Paramount
- Wikipedia article: Robert Cummings Paramount
Universal
- Wikipedia article: Robert Cummings Universal
Freelance star
- Wikipedia article: Robert Cummings Freelance star
Television star
- Wikipedia article: Robert Cummings Television star
Death
On December 2, 1990, Cummings died of kidney failure and complications from pneumonia at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California.
He is interred in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California.
External links
- Robert Cummings at the Internet Movie Database
- Robert Cummings at All Movie Guide
- Robert Cummings at the Internet Broadway Database
- Robert Cummings @ Find A Grave
- Wikipedia article: Robert Cummings
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Note: Robert Cummings was a volunteer at the Hollywood Canteen |
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