Robert Cummings(1910-1990)
- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Effective light comedian of '30s and '40s films and '50s and '60s TV
series, Robert Cummings was renowned for his eternally youthful looks
(which he attributed to a strict vitamin and health-food diet). He was
educated at Carnegie Tech and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Deciding that Broadway producers would be more interested in an
upper-crust Englishman than a kid from Joplin, Missouri, Cummings
passed himself off as Blade Stanhope Conway, British actor. The ploy
was successful. Cummings decided that if it worked on Broadway, it
would work in Hollywood, so he journeyed west and assumed the identity
of a rich Texan named Bruce Hutchens. The plan worked once more, and he
began securing small parts in films. He soon reverted to his real name
and became a popular leading man in light comedies, usually playing
well-meaning, pleasant but somewhat bumbling young men. He achieved
much more success, however, in his own television series in the '50s,
The Bob Cummings Show (1955) and My Living Doll (1964).
