American actor Richard Cromwell started on so high a plane at age 19 that he virtually had nowhere to go but down. Trained as an artist, Cromwell became fascinated with sketching the faces of Hollywood's elite. He wangled an extra job in 1930's King of Jazz, then won the coveted role of the kid brother who brings the mail in on time in Tol'able David (1930). Cromwell's subsequent film roles took advantage of his extreme youth, his air of callowness and his rough edges as a performer. He was frequently cast as a sensitive teenager--few more sensitive than the civic-minded hero of DeMill's This Day and Age (1933), who was so upset by his do-nothing government that he organized his friends into a vigilante group and stalked every gangster in town! Cromwell's best-known role was as the son of a martinet British officer in The Lives of a Bengal Lancer; in the course of the film, Cromwell breaks under torture and betrays his regiment, then spends the closing reels redeeming himself. Few of Cromwell's remaining film performances were as memorable; he has a few good moments as an innocent murder suspect in Young Mr. Lincoln, but the film belongs to Henry Fonda in the title role. By the time he starred in the low-budget Baby Face Morgan (1942) Cromwell's baby face had begun to erode and his appeal had diminished. He left movies to join the Coast Guard, returned to make one more film (the disposable murder mystery Bungalow 13 [1948]), then pursued non-show business endeavors until his death from cancer at age 50. The latter-day reputation of Richard Cromwell rests upon his first five years of moviemaking--and, perhaps, his brief marriage in the mid '40s to actress Angela Lansbury.
| Title | Year | Editors' Rating | User Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Bungalow 13
Actor |
1948 | |||
| 1943 | ||||
|
Baby Face Morgan
Actor |
1942 | |||
|
Parachute Battalion
Actor |
1941 | |||
|
Riot Squad
Actor |
1941 | |||
| 1941 | ||||
|
Enemy Agent
Actor |
1940 | |||
|
Village Barn Dance
Actor |
1940 | |||
|
Young Mr. Lincoln
Actor |
1939 | |||
|
Come On, Leathernecks!
Actor |
1938 | |||
|
Jezebel
Actor |
1938 | |||
|
Storm over Bengal
Actor |
1938 | |||
|
The Road Back
Actor |
1937 | |||
|
The Wrong Road
Actor |
1937 | |||
|
Torpedoed
Actor |
1937 | |||
|
Poppy
Actor |
1936 | |||
|
Annapolis Farewell
Actor |
1935 | |||
|
Life Begins at 40
Actor |
1935 | |||
|
McFadden's Flats
Actor |
1935 | |||
|
Men of the Hour
Actor |
1935 | |||
| 1935 | ||||
|
Unknown Woman
Actor |
1935 | |||
|
Above the Clouds
Actor |
1934 | |||
|
Among the Missing
Actor |
1934 | |||
|
Carolina
Actor |
1934 | |||
|
Name the Woman
Actor |
1934 | |||
| 1934 | ||||
|
When Strangers Meet
Actor |
1934 | |||
|
Hoopla
Actor |
1933 | |||
|
This Day and Age
Actor |
1933 | |||
|
Emma
Actor |
1932 | |||
|
That's My Boy
Actor |
1932 | |||
|
The Age of Consent
Actor |
1932 | |||
| 1932 | ||||
|
Tom Brown of Culver
Actor |
1932 | |||
|
Fifty Fathoms Deep
Actor |
1931 | |||
|
Maker of Men
Actor |
1931 | |||
|
Shanghaied Love
Actor |
1931 | |||
|
King of Jazz
Actor |
1930 | |||
|
Tol'able David
Actor |
1930 |
