Cromwell Richard1910

American actor whose career reached its pinnacle with his work in Jezebel (1938) with Bette Davis and Henry Fonda and again with Fonda in John Fords Young Mr. Lincoln (1939). Cromwells fame was perhaps first assured in The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), sharing top billing with Gary Cooper and Franchot Tone. That film was the first major effort directed by Henry Hathaway and it was based upon the popular novel by Francis Yeats-Brown. The Lives of a Bengal Lancer earned Paramount Studios a nomination for Best Picture in 1935, though Mutiny on the Bounty instead took the top award at the Academy Awards that year. Although gay, Cromwell was married once, briefly (1945–1946), to actress Angela Lansbury, when she was 19 and Cromwell was 35. Cromwell and Lansbury eloped and were married in a small civil ceremony on 27 September 1945 in Independence, California. After their divorce, Cromwell and Lansbury remained friends until his death, on 11 October 1960 at 1:00 AM in Hollywood of liver cancer at the age of 50. Leslie Halliwell in The Filmgoers Companion, summed up Cromwells enduring appeal when he described him as "a leading man, [the] gentle hero of early sound films." Link to Wikipedia biography Read less