John Cromwell (director)
John Cromwell (
December 23,
1887 –
September 26,
1979) was an
American actor,
producer and
director.
Born
Elwood Dager Cromwell in
Toledo,
Ohio, he made his
New York stage debut in
Marian De Forest's adaptation of
Louisa May Alcott's
Little Women (
1912) on
Broadway. It was a hit and ran for 184 performances. He then directed the
play The Painted Woman (
1913), which failed. Next he acted in and co-directed with
Frank Craven the hit show
Too Many Cooks (
1914), which ran for 223 performances.
Cromwell played Charles Lomax in the original Broadway production of
George Bernard Shaw's play
Major Barbara (
1915), about a woman of
The Salvation Army, and he played the role as Capt. Kearney in the revival of Shaw's
Captain Brassbound's Conversion (
1916). Among others, he also had a role in
The Racket (
1927), which ran for 119 performances. The following year while the Broadway company was playing
The Racket in
Los Angeles, Cromwell was signed to a
Paramount Pictures contract as an actor and student
director.
He made his
motion picture debut playing Walter Babbing in the
comedy The Dummy (
1929), a
talkie starring
Ruth Chatterton and
Fredric March, with
Jack Oakie, and
Zasu Pitts. His work as co-director with
Edward Sutherland on the musical/romance
Close Harmony starring
Buddy Rogers,
Nancy Carroll,
Harry Green, and Jack Oakie, and the musical/drama
The Dance of Life (both released in
1929), was so skillful he was allowed to begin directing without collaboration, beginning with
The Mighty that same year starring
George Bancroft, in which he also played the part of Mr. Jamieson.
He directed
Tom Sawyer (
1930) starring
Jackie Coogan in the title role;
Sinclair Lewis's
Ann Vickers (
1933) starring
Irene Dunne,
Walter Huston,
Conrad Nagel,
Bruce Cabot, and
Edna May Oliver; and
Somerset Maugham's
Of Human Bondage (
1934) starring
Leslie Howard,
Bette Davis, and
Frances Dee.
The latter two movies were at
RKO and both had
censorship trouble. In the
novel by Lewis, Ann Vickers is a
birth control advocate and reformer who has an extramarital affair. The
screenplay was finally approved by the
Production Code when the
studio agreed to make Vickers an unmarried woman at the time of her affair, thus eliminating the issue of
adultery. The screenplay for Maugham's
Of Human Bondage was unacceptable because the
prostitute, Mildred Rogers (played by Davis), whom the club-footed medical student, Philip Carey (played by Howard), falls in love with, comes down with
syphilis.
Will Hays's office demanded that Mildred be made a waitress who comes down with
TB, and that she be married to Carey's friend she cheats on him with. RKO agreed to everything to keep from having to pay a $25,000 fine.
Cromwell had four wives: actress
Kay Johnson (married
1928-divorced); actress
Alice Lindahl (divorced); actress
Marie Goff (divorced); and actress Ruth Nelson (married
1946-his death
1979).
He and Kay Johnson had one
adopted son, John Oliver Cromwell (actor
James Cromwell).
Of his
Shakespearean roles on Broadway, Cromwell played the role as Paris, kinsman to the prince, in
Romeo and Juliet (
1935) starring
Katharine Cornell, who also produced the play, and
Maurice Evans, in the title roles; the role as Rosenkrantz in
Hamlet (
1936), which was staged and produced by
Guthrie McClintic (Cornell's husband, who had been married to
Estelle Wynwood), starring
John Gielgud in the title role,
Judith Anderson as Gertrude, and
Lillian Gish as Ophelia; and the role as Lennox in the revival of
Macbeth (
1948) starring
Michael Redgrave in the title role and
Flora Robson as Lady Macbeth, with
Julie Harris as a witch,
Martin Balsam as one of the three murderers, and
Beatrice Straight as Lady MacDuff.
Cromwell also appeared on Broadway in the role as Brother Martin Ladvenu in Katharine Cornell's revival of
Saint Joan (
1936), which was directed by Guthrie McClintic; and as Freddy Eynsford Hill in
Cedric Hardwicke's revival of
Pygmalion (
1945) starring
Gertrude Lawrence as Eliza Doolittle and
Raymond Massey as Henry Higgins.
Among the other movies Cromwell directed are
Little Lord Fauntleroy (
1936) starring
Freddie Bartholomew and
Dolores Costello;
The Prisoner of Zenda (
1937) starring
Ronald Colman and
Madeleine Carroll, with Raymond Massey,
Mary Astor,
David Niven, and
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.;
Algiers (
1938) starring
Charles Boyer and
Hedy Lamarr;
Abe Lincoln in Illinois (
1940) starring Raymond Massey,
Gene Lockhart, and
Ruth Gordon;
Since You Went Away (
1944) starring
Claudette Colbert,
Jennifer Jones,
Joseph Cotten,
Shirley Temple, and
Lionel Barrymore, with
Hattie McDaniel,
Agnes Moorehead,
Alla Nazimova, and
Keenan Wynn;
Anna and the King of Siam (
1946) starring
Irene Dunn,
Rex Harrison,
Linda Darnell,
Lee J. Cobb, and
Gale Sondergaard; the
film noir Dead Reckoning (
1947) starring
Humphrey Bogart and
Lizabeth Scott; the prison drama
Caged (
1950) starring
Eleanor Parker and Agnes Moorehead, with
Ellen Corby; and the noir crime/drama
The Racket (
1951) starring
Robert Mitchum, Lizabeth Scott, and
Robert Ryan, which, incidentally, Cromwell had appeared in on Broadway and on tour.
Cromwell was president of the
Screen Directors Guild from
1944 to
1946. He was
blacklisted in
Hollywood as a
Communist from
1951 to
1958.
He won the
1952 Tony for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance as John Gray in
Point of No Return (
1951) starring
Henry Fonda. The following year, he played the role as Linus Larabee in
Sabrina Fair starring Joseph Cotten as Linus Larrabee, Jr.,
Margaret Sullavan as Sabrina Fairchild, with
Cathleen Nesbitt as Maude Larrabee.
He returned to movie directing with
The Goddess (
1958) starring
Kim Stanley, about an emotional
sex symbol. He directed two more minor movies, the last being released in
1961.
Cromwell acted in a number of Broadway plays over a career spanning fifty-nine years. In addition to
Too Many Cooks, he directed or staged eleven plays and produced seven. His final performance on Broadway was in the role as Mr. Potter in
Solitaire/Double Solitaire (
1971).
He was cast by
Robert Altman in the role as Mr. Rose in the movie
3 Women (
1977) starring
Shelley Duvall and
Sissy Spacek, and as Bishop Martin in
A Wedding (
1978) starring
Desi Arnaz, Jr.,
Carol Burnett,
Geraldine Chaplin,
Mia Farrow,
Vittorio Gassman, and Lillian Gish.
John Cromwell died at age ninety-two in
Santa Barbara, California. He was cremated.
