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 and My Living Doll.


In dramatic films he was billed in the credits as Robert Cummings; in lighter fare, often as Bob Cummings. During WWII, as a pilot, Cummings was once stationed at Oxnard, California. Godson of Orville Wright, an old family friend, who also taught him to fly. He piloted his own plane most of his life. According to an article in Flying Magazine, when the government began licensing flight instructors, Bob received flight instructor certificate number "1", the first instructor to receive a license. Was accused by his estranged wife, Mary Elliott, of using the drug methedrine or "speed" and carrying on an international affair with his former secretary. [29 October 1969]. His "The Bob Cummings Show" (1955) co-star, Dwayne Hickman, was said to be a huge fan of Cummings's movies, as a little boy of the 1940s. His father thought he wanted to name him Robert Orville Cummings, after his godson, when his mother was actually against it. After looking at Robert Jr.'s birth certificate, she wanted to christened him, Charles Clarence Cummings Jr., after his father, before Charles legally changed his name to Robert. Before he was a successful actor, he was an Air Force officer, while he was a senior in high school. Best remembered by the public for his starring role as photographer Bob Collins on "The Bob Cummings Show" (1955). Moved to Los Angeles in 1935, and broke into films by faking a southern drawl and presenting himself as Brice Hutchens, a Texan. On "The Bob Cummings Show" (1955), he played a studio photographer who photographed, and went out with the world's most beautiful models, in real-life, he wasn't a bachelor. Just before his death, he joined Art Linkletter and former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, at the 35th Anniversary Celebration of Disneyland, reprising their appearances, when the amusement park was first opened. 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, Pennsylvania. He studied aeronautical engineering for a year before being forced to drop out for financial reasons, his family having lost heavily in the 1929 stock market crash. Had appeared on a successful radio serial, Those We Love, from 1938 to 1945, opposite Richard Cromwell, Francis X. Bushman and Nan Grey. In 1942, he joined the United States Army Air Forces. He worked as an instructor for many years, prior to that, and was also the first flight instructor in the United States, having gained certification in 1938.