Born in New York City,[1] Cummings started his acting career at age 16 in Diplomacy.

[4] Acting in the Proctor Stock Company, Cummings appeared with Lillian Russell and other actresses.

Powers company in Mount Vernon, New York,[5] and quickly became a popular leading man.

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.

[6] In 1943, as part of the 50th anniversary of the birth of the motion picture industry, Cummings was awarded the Thomas A. Edison Foundation Gold Medal for outstanding achievement in the arts and sciences.