Dorothy Cumming

Dorothy Greville Cumming (12 April 1894 – 10 December 1983) was an Australian-born actress whose career spanned stage and silent film productions in Australia, England, and the United States. Born in Boorowa, New South Wales, she was the daughter of Victor Albert Cumming, a Lands Department officer and owner of Narrangullen sheep station near Yass, and the former Sarah T. Fennell. Her paternal grandparents were of Scottish and English origin, and her maternal grandparents were also from England. Around 1904, the family relocated to the Sydney suburb of Woollahra, where Cumming attended Ascham School and began elocution and acting lessons, making her first stage appearances in 1907. By 1911 she had appeared alongside Enid Bennett in J. C. Williamson's production Everywoman.

Cumming's film career began in Australia in 1915 with the six-reel spy drama Within our Gates, or Deeds that Won Gallipoli, directed by Frank Harvey and produced by J. C. Williamson. That same year she appeared in additional Williamson productions, including Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford and Officer 666, the latter directed by Fred Niblo. Determined to pursue a film career in the United States, she departed Australia in mid-1916 and went on to appear in 39 American, English, and Australian films between 1915 and 1929. Among her most prominent screen roles was the Virgin Mary in Cecil B. DeMille's 1927 production The King of Kings, for which she signed a contract in 1926 that regulated her personal life for seven years, including a prohibition against divorce. She also played the jealous wife in Victor Sjöström's 1928 film The Wind.

On Broadway, Cumming was active from 1918 to 1929, appearing in productions including The Woman Brown and Tiger! Tiger!, as well as contributing as a book writer. Her final Broadway credit was Judas, staged at the Longacre Theatre in 1929 and featuring Basil Rathbone, in which she portrayed the role of Naomi.

In her personal life, Cumming married twice. Her first husband was stage director Frank Elliott Dakin, known professionally as Frank Elliott, whom she married on 4 April 1922. They separated in 1925 and divorced on 9 December 1927. The divorce proceedings brought public attention to the restrictive personal conduct clause in her DeMille contract, though the clause did not prevent the divorce from being finalized. She and Dakin had two sons, Anthony and Greville C. E. Cumming, both of whom took their mother's surname following the divorce. On 2 August 1932, Cumming married Allan McNab, a British artist and designer who served as art director of Life magazine, design director for Norman Bel Geddes, and director of administration of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Cumming came from a family of accomplished siblings. Her sister Rose Cumming became a prominent American interior decorator, and another sister, Eileen Cumming, worked as an advertising executive and married rheumatologist Russell LaFayette Cecil. Cumming also had several half-siblings from her mother's first marriage. She died in New York City on 10 December 1983.