Irving Cummings
Cummings in 1922
Born
Irving Caminsky[1]

(1888-10-09)October 9, 1888
New York City, U.S.
DiedApril 18, 1959(1959-04-18) (aged 70)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)Film director, actor
Years active1903–1954
SpouseRuth Sinclair (m.1917)
ChildrenIrving Cummings Jr.

Irving Cummings[2] (October 9, 1888 – April 18, 1959) was an American movie actor and director.

Career

Born in New York City,[1] Cummings started his acting career at age 16 in Diplomacy.[3] His Broadway, performances included In the Long Run (1909) and Object -- Matrimony (1916).[4]

Acting in the Proctor Stock Company, Cummings appeared with Lillian Russell and other actresses.[3]

Cummings entered into movies in 1909, acting with the P. A. Powers company in Mount Vernon, New York,[5] and quickly became a popular leading man. Few of the films he made as an actor are easily available. Exceptions include Buster Keaton's first feature film, The Saphead (1920), in which Cummings plays a crooked stockbroker; Fred Niblo's film Sex (1920), one of the first films to depict a new phenomenon in 1920s America, the Flapper; and The Round-Up (1920), a Western drama starring Roscoe Arbuckle (with the famous tagline "Nobody loves a fat man") and featuring Wallace Beery—these films are readily available on home video. Around the same time, Cummings started to direct action movies and occasional comedies.

In 1934, Cummings directed Grand Canary, and in 1929, he was nominated for an Academy Award for his direction of In Old Arizona.

Cummings was known for the big splashy 1930s Technicolor musicals with popular leading ladies such as Betty Grable, Alice Faye, Carmen Miranda, and Shirley Temple (Little Miss Broadway, 1938) he directed at 20th Century Fox. He retired in 1954.[3]

Personal life and death

Cummings was married to Ruth Sinclair, and they had a son, screenwriter and producer Irving Cummings Jr.[3]

On April 18, 1959, Cummings died at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital[3] of a heart attack in Hollywood, California, at age 70.[1]

Recognition

Cummings has a star at 6816 Hollywood Boulevard on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It was dedicated on February 8, 1960.[6] In 1943, as part of the 50th anniversary of the birth of the motion picture industry, Cummings was awarded the Thomas A. Edison Foundation Gold Medal for outstanding achievement in the arts and sciences.[3]

Filmography

Actor

Director

References

  1. 1 2 3 Ellenberger, Allan R. (May 2001). Celebrities in Los Angeles Cemeteries: A Directory. McFarland. p. 121. ISBN 978-0-7864-0983-9. Retrieved August 13, 2020.
  2. ↑ "Draft Registration Care". Selective Service System. June 1917. Retrieved August 18, 2023 – via fold3.com.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Irving Cummings, director, is dead". The New York Times. United Press International. April 19, 1959. p. 86. Retrieved September 24, 2021.
  4. ↑ "Irving Cummings". Internet Broadway Database. The Broadway League. Archived from the original on August 13, 2020. Retrieved August 13, 2020.
  5. ↑ Hopper, Hedda (April 23, 1944). "It Takes an Actor to Direct an Actor". Chicago Tribune. p. 78. Retrieved August 14, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ↑ "Irving Cummings". Hollywood Walk of Fame. Archived from the original on August 13, 2020. Retrieved August 13, 2020.
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