Had been the editor of The Pittsburgh Leader and The New York Evening Sun.
His father, Maurice Frederick Cunningham (c.1861-1937), was a building contractor who had built many of the Hollywood studios constructed in the early 1920s.
Never recovered from a stroke he suffered while working on the film Union Pacific (1939).
One the more prolific and fast working screenwriters in Hollywood. He once completed ten five-reel films in ten-weeks. Between 1918 and 1925 he turned out one hundred full-length films.
Was working for the publicity department of an Eastern US film company when he decided to try his hand at scenario writing.