John Cromwell(1886-1979)
- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Actor / director John Cromwell was
born December 23, 1887, in Toledo, OH. He made his Broadway debut on
October 14, 1912, in
Marian De Forest's adaptation
of Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women"
at the Playhouse Theatre. The show was a hit, running for a total of
184 performances. Cromwell appeared in another 38 plays on Broadway
between February 24, 1914--when he appeared in
Frank Craven's "Too Many Cooks" at
the 39th Street Theatre (a hit show he co-directed with Craven that ran
for a total of 223 performances)--and October 31, 1971, when he closed with
"Solitaire/Double Solitaire" at the John Golden Theatre after 36
performances. In addition to "Cooks", Cromwell directed or staged 11
plays and produced seven plays on Broadway. Among the highlights of his
Broadway acting career were his multiple appearances as a Shavian
actor. He was "Charles Lomax" in the original Broadway production of
George Bernard Shaw's "Major
Barbara" in 1915 (Guthrie McClintic,
who married Katharine Cornell in 1921
and became a notable Broadway director, played a butler) and as "Capt.
Kearney" in the revival of "Captain Brassbound's Conversion" the
following year (McClintic played "Marzo"). He also appeared as "Brother
Martin Ladvenu" in Katharine Cornell's
1936 "Saint Joan", directed by McClintic, and played "Freddy Eynsford
Hill" in Cedric Hardwicke's 1945
revival of "Pygmalion", starring
Gertrude Lawrence as "Eliza Doolittle"
and Raymond Massey as "Henry
Higgins".
As for William Shakespeare,
he played "Paris" to Katharine Cornell's "Juliet" and
Maurice Evans' "Romeo" in
McClntic's "Rome and Juliet" in 1935, and appeared as "Rosenkrantz" in
McClintic's 1936 Broadway staging of "Hamlet", with
John Gielgud in the title role,
Lillian Gish as "Ophelia" and
Judith Anderson as "Gertrude".
He also appeared as "Lennox" in the 1948 revival of Shakespeare's
"Scottish Play", with Michael Redgrave
as "Macbeth" and Flora Robson as "Lady
Macbeth" (young actors also featured in the play who went on to renown
were Julie Harris,
Martin Balsam and
Beatrice Straight). Cromwell won a
Tony Award as Best Featured Actor in a Play in 1952 for "Point of No
Return", in which he supported Henry Fonda,
and appeared as the father, "Linus Larabee Sr.", in "Sabrina Fair" the
next year.
With the advent of sound pictures, Cromwell went "Hollywood" in 1929,
appearing in The Dummy (1929) in
support of Ruth Chatterton and
Fredric March. He also co-directed two
talkies with A. Edward Sutherland
that year, Close Harmony (1929) and
The Dance of Life (1929) (he
had a bit part as a doorman in the latter). After learning the craft of
directing, he directed
The Mighty (1929) with
George Bancroft, in which he
made innovative use of sound. He also directed
Jackie Coogan in
Tom Sawyer (1930) the next year. He
made his name with Ann Vickers (1933) in 1933 and Of Human Bondage (1934) in
1934, two films he shot for RKO based on novels by the preeminent
writers Sinclair Lewis and
W. Somerset Maugham. Both movies ran
into censorship trouble. Lewis'
"Ann Vickers" featured
Irene Dunne as a reformer and birth control
advocate who has a torrid extramarital affair. The novel had been
condemned by the Catholic Church, and the proposed movie adaptation
proved controversial. The Studio Relations Committee, headed by James
Wingate (whose deputy was future Production Code Administration head
Joseph Breen, a Roman Catholic
intellectual) condemned the script as "vulgarly offensive" before
production began. The SRC, which oversaw the Motion Picture Producers
and Distributors Association's Production Code, refused to approve the
script without major modifications, but RKO production chief
Merian C. Cooper balked over its
excessive demands. Though studio head
B.B. Kahane protested the SRC's actions to
MPPDA President Will Hays, the studio agreed
to make "Ann Vickers" an unmarried woman at the time of her affair, thus
eliminating adultery as an issue, and the film received a Seal of
Approval. The battle over "Ann Vickers" was one of the reasons the more
powerful PCA was created in 1934 to take the place of the SRC.
Joseph Breen, now head of the PCA,
warned that the script for
W. Somerset Maugham's
"Of Human Bondage" was
"highly offensive" because the prostitute "Mildred", whom the
protagonist, medical student "Philip Carey", falls in love with, comes
down with syphilis. Breen demanded that Mildred be turned into less
of a tramp, that she be afflicted with tuberculosis rather than syphilis and
that she be married to Carey's friend whom she cheats on him with. RKO
gave in on every point, as the PCA, unlike the SRC, had the ability to
levy a $25,000 fine for violations of the Production Code. Despite the
changes, chapters of the Catholic Church's Legion Of Deceny condemned
the film in Chicago, Detroit, Omaha and Pittsburgh. Despite a picket
line manned by local priests in Chicago, Cromwell's film broke
all records at the Hippodrome Theater when it played there in August
1934. Five hundred people had to be turned away opening night. It
seemed that wherever the Legion of Decency had condemned the film, it played to
capacity crowds. In 1935 Breen ruled that
"Of Human Bondage" would
have to be changed if RKO wished to re-release it.
Other major films Cromwell directed include
Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936),
The Prisoner of Zenda (1937),
Algiers (1938),
Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940),
Since You Went Away (1944)
and
Anna and the King of Siam (1946).
In 1951 he directed The Racket (1951)
starring Robert Mitchum,
Lizabeth Scott, and
Robert Ryan; he had appeared in the
original staging of the Broadway play by
Bartlett Cormack on which the movie was
based back in 1927.
Busy on Broadway in the 1950s, it was seven years before he directed
another film, The Goddess (1958),
with a screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky and
starring Kim Stanley. He directed
two more minor films before calling it quits as a movie director in
1961. As a director, Cromwell eschewed flashy camera work, as he felt it
detracted from both the story and the actors' performances. Late
in his life director
Robert Altman cast Cromwell as an
actor in two of his films, 3 Women (1977)
and A Wedding (1978).
John Cromwell died on
September 26, 1979, in Santa Barbara, CA.
born December 23, 1887, in Toledo, OH. He made his Broadway debut on
October 14, 1912, in
Marian De Forest's adaptation
of Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women"
at the Playhouse Theatre. The show was a hit, running for a total of
184 performances. Cromwell appeared in another 38 plays on Broadway
between February 24, 1914--when he appeared in
Frank Craven's "Too Many Cooks" at
the 39th Street Theatre (a hit show he co-directed with Craven that ran
for a total of 223 performances)--and October 31, 1971, when he closed with
"Solitaire/Double Solitaire" at the John Golden Theatre after 36
performances. In addition to "Cooks", Cromwell directed or staged 11
plays and produced seven plays on Broadway. Among the highlights of his
Broadway acting career were his multiple appearances as a Shavian
actor. He was "Charles Lomax" in the original Broadway production of
George Bernard Shaw's "Major
Barbara" in 1915 (Guthrie McClintic,
who married Katharine Cornell in 1921
and became a notable Broadway director, played a butler) and as "Capt.
Kearney" in the revival of "Captain Brassbound's Conversion" the
following year (McClintic played "Marzo"). He also appeared as "Brother
Martin Ladvenu" in Katharine Cornell's
1936 "Saint Joan", directed by McClintic, and played "Freddy Eynsford
Hill" in Cedric Hardwicke's 1945
revival of "Pygmalion", starring
Gertrude Lawrence as "Eliza Doolittle"
and Raymond Massey as "Henry
Higgins".
As for William Shakespeare,
he played "Paris" to Katharine Cornell's "Juliet" and
Maurice Evans' "Romeo" in
McClntic's "Rome and Juliet" in 1935, and appeared as "Rosenkrantz" in
McClintic's 1936 Broadway staging of "Hamlet", with
John Gielgud in the title role,
Lillian Gish as "Ophelia" and
Judith Anderson as "Gertrude".
He also appeared as "Lennox" in the 1948 revival of Shakespeare's
"Scottish Play", with Michael Redgrave
as "Macbeth" and Flora Robson as "Lady
Macbeth" (young actors also featured in the play who went on to renown
were Julie Harris,
Martin Balsam and
Beatrice Straight). Cromwell won a
Tony Award as Best Featured Actor in a Play in 1952 for "Point of No
Return", in which he supported Henry Fonda,
and appeared as the father, "Linus Larabee Sr.", in "Sabrina Fair" the
next year.
With the advent of sound pictures, Cromwell went "Hollywood" in 1929,
appearing in The Dummy (1929) in
support of Ruth Chatterton and
Fredric March. He also co-directed two
talkies with A. Edward Sutherland
that year, Close Harmony (1929) and
The Dance of Life (1929) (he
had a bit part as a doorman in the latter). After learning the craft of
directing, he directed
The Mighty (1929) with
George Bancroft, in which he
made innovative use of sound. He also directed
Jackie Coogan in
Tom Sawyer (1930) the next year. He
made his name with Ann Vickers (1933) in 1933 and Of Human Bondage (1934) in
1934, two films he shot for RKO based on novels by the preeminent
writers Sinclair Lewis and
W. Somerset Maugham. Both movies ran
into censorship trouble. Lewis'
"Ann Vickers" featured
Irene Dunne as a reformer and birth control
advocate who has a torrid extramarital affair. The novel had been
condemned by the Catholic Church, and the proposed movie adaptation
proved controversial. The Studio Relations Committee, headed by James
Wingate (whose deputy was future Production Code Administration head
Joseph Breen, a Roman Catholic
intellectual) condemned the script as "vulgarly offensive" before
production began. The SRC, which oversaw the Motion Picture Producers
and Distributors Association's Production Code, refused to approve the
script without major modifications, but RKO production chief
Merian C. Cooper balked over its
excessive demands. Though studio head
B.B. Kahane protested the SRC's actions to
MPPDA President Will Hays, the studio agreed
to make "Ann Vickers" an unmarried woman at the time of her affair, thus
eliminating adultery as an issue, and the film received a Seal of
Approval. The battle over "Ann Vickers" was one of the reasons the more
powerful PCA was created in 1934 to take the place of the SRC.
Joseph Breen, now head of the PCA,
warned that the script for
W. Somerset Maugham's
"Of Human Bondage" was
"highly offensive" because the prostitute "Mildred", whom the
protagonist, medical student "Philip Carey", falls in love with, comes
down with syphilis. Breen demanded that Mildred be turned into less
of a tramp, that she be afflicted with tuberculosis rather than syphilis and
that she be married to Carey's friend whom she cheats on him with. RKO
gave in on every point, as the PCA, unlike the SRC, had the ability to
levy a $25,000 fine for violations of the Production Code. Despite the
changes, chapters of the Catholic Church's Legion Of Deceny condemned
the film in Chicago, Detroit, Omaha and Pittsburgh. Despite a picket
line manned by local priests in Chicago, Cromwell's film broke
all records at the Hippodrome Theater when it played there in August
1934. Five hundred people had to be turned away opening night. It
seemed that wherever the Legion of Decency had condemned the film, it played to
capacity crowds. In 1935 Breen ruled that
"Of Human Bondage" would
have to be changed if RKO wished to re-release it.
Other major films Cromwell directed include
Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936),
The Prisoner of Zenda (1937),
Algiers (1938),
Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940),
Since You Went Away (1944)
and
Anna and the King of Siam (1946).
In 1951 he directed The Racket (1951)
starring Robert Mitchum,
Lizabeth Scott, and
Robert Ryan; he had appeared in the
original staging of the Broadway play by
Bartlett Cormack on which the movie was
based back in 1927.
Busy on Broadway in the 1950s, it was seven years before he directed
another film, The Goddess (1958),
with a screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky and
starring Kim Stanley. He directed
two more minor films before calling it quits as a movie director in
1961. As a director, Cromwell eschewed flashy camera work, as he felt it
detracted from both the story and the actors' performances. Late
in his life director
Robert Altman cast Cromwell as an
actor in two of his films, 3 Women (1977)
and A Wedding (1978).
John Cromwell died on
September 26, 1979, in Santa Barbara, CA.