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Sat 22 Aug 1942 - Voice (Hobart, Tas. : 1931 - 1953)
Page 3 - LIKEABLE ROBERT CUMMINGS
LIKEABLE ROBERT
CVMMINGS
The Man With The Smiling Face
JN "It Started With Eve," now
showing at the Strand, Robert
Cummings appears in a prominent
role," and does very well. Despite his
youthful face, Cummings can be 're-
garded as almost a screen veteran, and
has "appeared in dozens of films for
Paramount and Universal Companies.
The' following is his life story. .
A Boy's Ambition .
Having seen one or two films, a big
idea came, to Robert Cummings when
he Jvas only six years old. He told
his mother that he was going to be a
screen actor when he grew up. "Tush,
sonny," she said. "You've plenty of
' time to decide on your future." The
little boy was undeterred. He had
seen Charles Ray and thought him
wonderful; also George Walsh, who
thrilled him when he jumped over
chairs and furniture.
The youngster's favorite game was
playing at being an actor, and he
would enact fierce fight scenes in
which, incidentally, he always came
off the victor. Sometimes he pretend
ed to ride a horse, a la Bill Hart, but
wasn't very good at it. A baseball
bat put a temporary check on his film-
mindedness. When he was seven
years old he was playing with some
of the children of the neighbourhood.
The heavy slugger at the bat took a
wild cut at the ball, missed it, pivoted,
and the bat broke Bob's nose.
The small boy figured that a
broken nose was a serious handi
cap to an acting career, so he de
cided to concentrate on swim
ming. Eventually he became
swimming champion of his home
town, then of Missouri, then tri-
State champion of Missouri, Kan
sas and Oklahoma. He gave up
the idea of swimming as a career
when he tipped over in a canoe at
a Sunday school picnic and almost
drowned.
His choice of a career varied after
that. He decided to become a doctor,
lawyer, prizefighter, engineer, ac
countant, journalist and chemist in
turn. He also had ambitions to gradu
ate from West Point, Annapolis, Har
vard, Yale, Princeton and Oxford.
He never went to any of them, but
wound up by attending Kansas State
Teachers' College at Pittsburg. Kan
sas for one year; Drury College,
Springfield, Missouri, one year; and
Carnegie Tech., Pittsburg, one year.
While he was attending the latter
he fell a victim to aeroplane fever.
His great ambition was to earn en
ough money to buy his own plane. He
was planning how it would be best to
do this when he was given the lead
ing role in a college play, and the am
bition which he had at the age of six
returned to him. He did so well in
the' play that one of the college pro
fessors wrote to his father, a doctor
in Joplin, Missouri, and told him that
the boy ought to study for the theatre.
Dr. Cummings consented, and off
went Bob to the American Academy
of Dramatic Arts in New York.
i Searching For Work
He had been there a year when his
father suffered a severe illness, and
it became necessary for Bob to go
job" hunting. He applied at various
theatres on Broadway, but without
success. English actors were all the
vogue in America just then, and man
agers said to him: "Now, if only you
were a British actor." He was get
ting pretty low in funds when his
mother wrote to him and said that
she had a little money from an in
surance which he could have to carry
on.
He decided to take a big chance
with the money. If producers want
ed English actors — well, lie would go
to England and acquire the right ac
cent. When he arrived over there he
bought a second-hand motor-cycle and
toured the country, learning every
thing he could about the history and
the customs of England and also ac
quiring an English accent. He was
over there eight months, and towards
the end uf that time he bribed the
caretaker of a small provincial theatre
to hang a placard with the name he
had chosen — Blade Stanhope Conway,
because he thought that sounded ultra
British — and one of his photographs
in the lobby so that he could have a
picture taken of it. He then sent the
picture to agents in New York saying
that he was a well known London "ju
venile" and that he was willing to con
sider American offers.
This hoax worked, for he re
ceived several favorable replies,
and when he got to New York he
was immediately cast for the "ju
venile" role — that of an English
man — in "The Roof," a Galswor
thy play. The other members of
the cast never doubted that he
was an Englishman.
Bob did not feel that he was too
good in his part, but the critics gave
him good notices, and in his next en
gagement he saw his name in lights
over the theatre. Later he went on a
long vaudeville tour, and .when he re
turned to New York he was engaged
for the Ziegfeld Follies, and appeared
in the 1934 and 1935 editions. He
got this engagement because the Fol
lies required a smartly dressed young
Englishman who could sing and dance.
Still nobody suspected that he was not
British. In February, 1935, Bob mar
ried a singing star of the Follies, and
he often teases her because the first
time she spoke kindly of him was to
say that the only reason she liked him
was because he was an Englishman.
When the Ziegfeld show closed that
season, Bob and his wife felt in an
adventurous mood, and they decided
they would go to Hollywood. When
they arrived there they found that
English accents were not in demand,
so Bob owned up to his agent that he
was born in Joplin, 'Missouri, and that
he could be American again at a mo
ment's notice. He was then lucky en
ough to get a Paramount contract,
and lie remained there oyer three
years. He took his own name— or,
rather, part of it — for his full name is
Charles Robert Cummings. He says
that it took him nearly a year to get
hack into his mid-West speech, for at
the slightest provocation he would slip
back into his English accent.
Paramount Contract
His first film was "The Virginia
Judge," and some of the other Para
mount films in which he played were
"Hollywood Boulevarde," "The .Ac
cusing Finger," "Hideaway Girl,"
"Arizona Mahoney," "The Last Train
From Madrid," "Souls at Sea," "So
phie Lang Goes West," "Wells Far
go," "Swing, Teacher, Swing," "You
and Me," "The Texans" and "Gener
als of To-morrow." When the studio
failed to take up his option, he Had a
bad time for six months. He sat
around idle, hoping all the time for a
break, He became as nearly discour
aged as he had ever been, and one day
he decided that he would return to
New York and try to get back on the
stage there. He would give himself
just two more days and see if another
Hollywood chance would come along
and then off he would go to New
York.
As. luck would have it, the very next
morning he met the producer who
guided Deanna Durbin to fame. He
gave Bob a test and then, cast him in
the Deanna Durbin film, "Three
Smart Girls Grow Up." From then
on Bob achieved greater success than
he had ever had. His films since then
have been "The Underpup," "Every
thing Happens At Night," "And One
Was Beautiful," "Spring Parade,"
"Private Affairs," "Free and Easy"
and "One Night in the Tropics."
Bob has not forgotten his love
of flying and devotes his spare
.time to it. He has achieved his
ambition and now owns his own .
plane; he also has the largest and
most authoritative library on avi
ation in Hollywood.
Bob was born on June 9th,- 1910. He
has black hair, blue eyes, and is half
an inch under six feet in height. His
smile reflects the sense of humor that
led him to pull that bluff about being
an Englishman over the Broadway
stage people. He is a great reader,
loves all outdoor sports, is a happy
and optimistic character, and has a
great number of friends. He is an
avowed vegetarian, but for brie of his
films he was called on to eat fried rab
bit several times during rehearsals
and takes. He did it— after all, art is
art.
When Bob and his wife planned to
build a house in the San Fernando
Valley, they decided that it should be
Old English style with a heavy
thatched roof, and Bob bought a new
car to go with it, one with a right
hand drive. He said it was in loving
memory of his English accent and
"Blade Stanhope Conway."
1 Robert Cummings and Deanna Durbin in a scene from "It Started With Eve"Help
1 Robert Cummings and Deanna Durbin in a scene from "It Started
With Eve"
Article identifier
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article219382856
Page identifier
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page23358540
APA citation
LIKEABLE ROBERT CUMMINGS (1942, August 22).Voice (Hobart, Tas. : 1931 - 1953), p. 3. Retrieved March 31, 2025, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article219382856
MLA citation
"LIKEABLE ROBERT CUMMINGS"Voice (Hobart, Tas. : 1931 - 1953) 22 August 1942: 3. Web. 31 Mar 2025 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article219382856>.
Harvard/Australian citation
1942 'LIKEABLE ROBERT CUMMINGS',Voice (Hobart, Tas. : 1931 - 1953), 22 August, p. 3. , viewed 31 Mar 2025, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article219382856
Wikipedia citation
{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article219382856 |title=LIKEABLE ROBERT CUMMINGS |newspaper=[[Voice]] |volume=15, |issue=34 |location=Tasmania, Australia |date=22 August 1942 |accessdate=31 March 2025 |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia}}

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