Irving Cummings
actor, director, producer
- Birth name:
- Irving Caminsky
- Born:
- 1888-10-09, New York City, New York, USA
- Died:
- 1959-04-18, Los Angeles, California, USA
- Professions:
- actor, director, producer
Biography
Irving Cummings’ story opens on a New York stage, where, still in his teens, he traded homework for curtain calls beside the formidable Lillian Russell. In 1909 the flickering new art of film lured him west; by the Roaring Twenties his profile was among the most requested on silent-era lobby cards. Not content with matinee-idol fame, he stepped behind the camera, first guiding rough-and-tumble action reels and the odd wisecracking comedy. The leap to 1930s Technicolor at 20th Century-Fox proved his true spotlight: here he orchestrated the studio’s rainbow-bright musicals, launching Betty Grable’s legs, Alice Faye’s velvet pipes, and Shirley Temple’s dimples into pop-culture legend.
