The nephew of mogul Louis B. Mayer,producer Jack Cummings spent most of his career at Mayer's own MGM. But while Mayer was not averse to nepotism, he also believed in the up-by-the-bootstraps work ethic; Cummings was started out as a lowly MGM office boy, climbing his way up the corporate ladder on his own volition rather than through the auspices of his uncle. Given his first writing and directing assignments at MGM's short-subjects division, Cummings became a staff producer in 1934, roughly ten years after first walking through the studio gates. He remained in the "B"-feature unit until 1936's Born to Dance, a lavish Cole Porter musical which established Cummings' reputation. Simpatico with his talent, Cummings permitted a great deal of leeway in developing projects; when assigned the medium-budget Marx Bros. feature Go West in 1940, the producer bowed to Groucho's expensive suggestion that the film's comedy scenes should first be tried out in front of a live audience, as had been the procedure on their earlier successes A Night at the Opera (1935) and A Day at the Races (1937). Cummings worked copacetically with such people as Red Skelton, Esther Williams and Fred Astaire during his next 25 years at MGM (outlasting his uncle Louis Mayer, who was booted from the studio in 1951), and was responsible for such blockbuster musicals as Kiss Me Kate (1953) and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954). Jack Cummings retired from MGM in 1964 at a career high point, having just completed the profitable Elvis Presley musical Viva Las Vegas (1964).
by Hal Erickson
biography
