According to an article in Flying Magazine, when the government began licensing flight instructors, Bob received flight instructor certificate number "1", the first instructor to receive a license.
Before being a successful actor on television, he also taught other young men how to fly.
Before he was a successful actor, he was an Air Force officer, while he was a senior in high school.
Began his contract career for Paramount in 1935.
Beginning in 1946, he served as Executive Producer of United World Productions.
Best remembered by the public for his starring role as photographer Bob Collins on "The Bob Cummings Show" (1955).
Chosen by producer John Wayne as his co-star in The High and the Mighty (1954), though director William A. Wellman replaced him with Robert Stack.
During WWII, as a pilot, Cummings was once stationed at Oxnard, California.
Godson of Orville Wright, an old family friend, who also taught him to fly. He piloted his own plane most of his life.
Graduated from Joplin High School [1928]
Had appeared on a successful radio serial, Those We Love, from 1938 to 1945, opposite Richard Cromwell, Francis X. Bushman and Nan Grey.
Had his 80th birthday party, just 6 months before his death.
He had 7 hobbies: flying, partying, golfing, photography, jogging, swimming and spending time with his family.
His "The Bob Cummings Show" (1955) co-star, Dwayne Hickman went to the parade with him, for a benefit show in Cummings' hometown of Joplin, Missouri.
His "The Bob Cummings Show" (1955) co-star, Dwayne Hickman, was said to be a huge fan of Cummings's movies, as a little boy of the 1940s.
His father thought he wanted to name him Robert Orville Cummings, after his godson, when his mother was actually against it. After looking at Robert Jr.'s birth certificate, she wanted to christened him, Charles Clarence Cummings Jr., after his father, before Charles legally changed his name to Robert.
His father, Dr. Charles Clarence Cummings, Sr., was a surgeon, who was part of the original medical staff of St. John's Hospital in Joplin. He was the founder of the Jasper County Tuberculosis Hospital in Webb City, Missouri, his mother, Ruth Annabelle Kraft, was an ordained minister of the Science of Mind.
His second series "The Bob Cummings Show" (1961) was canceled, because it was too expensive.
In 1942, he joined the United States Army Air Forces. He worked as an instructor for many years, prior to that, and was also the first flight instructor in the United States, having gained certification in 1938.
In dramatic films he was billed in the credits as Robert Cummings; in lighter fare, often as Bob Cummings.