The 1,000-Watt Bulb

Robert Cummings' mother was an ordained minister, and back in the family home in Joplin, Mo., she gave him a short sermon that he has never forgotten. Said she: "Your mind is like a light bulb. It's up to you whether you use it like a 60-watt bulb or make it shine as bright as a 1,000-watter." She did not protest when Cummings decided to look for a socket on the Great White Way.

Three times the Cummings glow has threatened to flicker out when his career seemed to reach a dead end: 1) on Broadway, 2) in the movies, and 3) on television. But last week, at 46, he was up to a candlepower to brighten any mother's eye as he starred in his own Bob Cummings Show (Thurs. 8 p.m., CBS), made a guest appearance with Perry Como, and played host (with his children: Robert, 10, and Melinda, 8) on CBS's Circus Highlights from Madison Square Garden.

Nutty Salesman. Bob taxed his mind power to capacity to get his career rolling. When he first tried to crash Broadway, he got nowhere until he made a brief trip to London, returned with a British accent and a new name--Blade Stanhope Conway. He was hired for the Broadway production of Galsworthy's The Roof. When the vogue for English actors faded, Bob changed his name to Brice Hutchens, emerged as a juvenile lead in the Ziegfeld Follies and, finally, adopted a Texas accent and took his own name to play opposite Margaret Sullavan in Hollywood.

Television nearly wrecked him twice. After World War II service as an Air Force flight instructor, Bob was one of the hundreds of actors dropped by the Hollywood moviemakers in 1947 as they cut budgets in fear of TV's inroads. He then signed up for a filmed TV series called My Hero, in which he played the role of a nutty real estate salesman named Beanblossom. The show was so bad that not even an agent would come near him after it was released (although, on the strength of his name. 34 films are still being shown by TV stations across the country).

Bachelor Photographer. Though he played in a few TV dramas (notably as the star of Studio One's courtroom thriller, 12 Angry Men), Bob's income was dwindling until in 1954 George Burns of Burns & Allen suggested the new series that has become the Bob Cummings Show. In it, Bob is a dame-happy bachelor photographer whose major problems are to avoid marriage while at the same time trying to find a husband for his widowed sister (Rosemary De Camp), who does not particularly want one. The show is nearly as slapstick as the My Hero series, but considerably funnier, and Bob has an excellent foil for his own comedy routines in his girl Friday (Anne B. Davis), a half-pint comedienne known as Schultzie. Sponsor Winston Cigarettes has paid the bills for the past two years and has an option for three and a half years more. Says Bob: "A lot of other sponsors want to get in too. Show business is like the stock market--when you're hot, everyone wants a part of you. But when you're cold, they all act like you're dead."

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