Happy Birthday Robert Cummings (1910–1990)

Born: Charles Clarence Robert Orville Cummings
June 9, 1910 in Joplin, Missouri, USA

Died: December 2, 1990 (age 80) in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA

QUOTES:

[on his lifelong devotion to healthy eating] I’d love to tell all those critics how well I feel today because of my diet. But they’re all dead.

The girls have it easy, everything they wear in pictures is suppled by the studio- their dress, stockings, shoes, underwear, jewelry, hair, even their falsies. They could arrive at the studio naked, if they cared to. But the actor has to pay for everything himself. He even has to bring his own toupee, if he wears one.

I had to have a sharp wardrobe and a fancy car and foot the bill at the night clubs. And my date, who was earning 10 times as much as I was, would brag about how she borrowed her dress and furs from the studio.

[complaining that none of the actor’s wardrobe–theoretically a part of the tools of his job–is tax-deductible] Every year I used to take my clothes and still photos from my pictures to the Post Office building in Hollywood. I would explain to the income tax people how I used which suit in which picture. This year, they decided clothes weren’t deductible, even though I have to dress well in my job.

[In 1949] I figure producers are paying me a lot of money and I ought to dress well.