Born in New York City as Irving Caminsky, Acting in the Proctor Stock Company, Cummings appeared with
Lillian Russell and other actresses. 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. 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. ==Personal life and death==