He had one of the longest careers in Hollywood. He worked for some of the best directors and opposite some of the biggest stars.
He was known as Bob Cummings. But for most of his film career he was billed as Robert Cummings.
That was his real name. Though he had tried names such as Blade Stanhope Conway and Bruce Hutchens — in early career efforts to pass himself off as either a Brit or a Texan (certainly not as the Midwesterner he was from Joplin, Missouri) — Robert Cummings was the name that stuck.
He was never in the top tier of leading men, but Cummings had a successful career in movies from the 1930s to the 1960s. And, he was one of the biggest stars on television in its early days.
Cummings was also known for his fastidious health regimen. In 1951, actress Joan Fontaine recalled sharing a chartered airplane ride with the actor to Brazil.
The plane trip was uneventful except that Bob Cumming’s wrist watch would regularly resound through the plane. He was a vitamin addict and took his pills every four hours, night and day, awakening the sleeping passengers, Fontaine wrote in her autobiography, No Bed of Roses.
The pill popping seemed to more or less work; Cummings died in 1990 at the age of 80.
Ok, let’s see how much you recall about this durable star. As usual, questions today and answers tomorrow. Here we go:
1) Question: Cummings’ most memorable movies included which of the following Alfred Hitchcock thrillers? a) 1949’s Under Capricorn; b) 1942’s Saboteur; c) 1944’s Lifeboat; or d) 1954’s Dial M For Murder.
2) Question: Cummings was never nominated for an Academy Award, but he did manage a slew of Emmy Award nominations and one actual win. What was it for?
3) Question: Which one of the following was not a leading lady in a Robert Cummings movie? a) Doris Day in 1954’s Lucky Me; Rosalind Russell in 1949’s Tell It To The Judge; Loretta Young in 1949’s The Accused; or d) Barbara Stanwyck in 1946’s The Bride Wore Boots.
4) Question: Perhaps best remembered today for his hit Fifties tv sitcom, The Bob Cummings Show, the actor actually made his initial tube splash in another series in which he played a footloose bachelor. Can you name that earlier program?
5) Question: It’s not widely known that Cummings was at actually one point host of NBC’s Tonight program. Who preceded him in that role, and who followed him?
OK then, THE STAGECOACH, CARPETBAGGERS career of ROBERT “BOB” CUMMINGS…
1) B, D
2) 1954’s Studio One -Twelve Angry Men
3) Here we go again, the Joe & Frank TRICK question…
They were ALL leading ladies in a Bob Cummings movie, and
they ALL got top billing over him!
4) Is this another TRICK Question?
Robert Cummings “initial tube splash” was in the Run For The
Sun episode in the 1950 Sure As Fate TV series.
But if you mean “splash” as being a hit on TV, then maybe it’s
the starring role in 1952/53 My Hero series.
5) Jack Paar, Johnny Carson
The big irony with Robert “Bob” Cummings is, that although he looked younger than he was, lived the healthy lifestyle with his diet and all those vitamins… The reality was, he was a SPEED freak!
“Despite his interest in health, Cummings was 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 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’ 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’ 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.”
Indeed, it was not a happy HOLLYWOOD ending to Bob’s life…