1 9 5 5 – 1 9 5 9 (USA)
1 9 6 1 – 1 9 6 2 (USA)
173 x 30 minute episodes
The romantic misadventures of Bob Collins (Robert Cummings), a suave, sophisticated, swinging bachelor photographer (with his own aeroplane) operating out of Beverly Hills, California.
Situations in the show centred mostly around Bob’s womanising ways with his models, and the attempts of his war-widowed sister, Margaret (Rosemary DeCamp,) to make him settle down.
Margaret’s college student son, Chuck, was played by Dwayne Hickman (later Dobie Gillis). Ann B. Davis – who would go on to fame as Alice in The Brady Bunch – played Bob’s assistant, Schultzy (pictured below).
Nancy Kulp (later Jane Hathaway in The Beverly Hillbillies) appeared in several episodes as Pamela Livingstone, a snooty, sexually aggressive bird-watching enthusiast with a crush on Bob, who had been an Army Air Corps pilot during WWII.
Robert Cummings also played the occasional dual role of his own grandfather, Grandpa Josh Collins (pictured at right), who was also a flier with his own biplane, called ‘Jenny’.
The series debuted originally on NBC on 1 January 1955 and moved to CBS the next fall, until 17 September 1957 when it moved back to NBC until 14 July 1959. The show was also known as Love That Bob in syndication.
Creator, producer and head writer Paul Henning went on to produce 1960s TV hits such as The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction and Green Acres.
A second incarnation of The Bob Cummings Show ran as a comedy-adventure series on CBS in 1961 and 1962 with Cummings playing Bob Carson, a charter pilot and amateur detective.
Prominent in the new show’s plot was an “aerocar”, a car that converted into an aeroplane for short hops, and a twin-engine machine for longer flights. Bob Cummings actually flew both. He had a commercial pilot’s licence and owned his own twin-engined aircraft.
Robert Cummings died on 2 December 1990 at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills of kidney failure and complications from pneumonia, aged 80. Cummings had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease.
Bob Collins
Robert Cummings
Charmaine ‘Schultzy’ Schultz
Ann B. Davis
Margaret MacDonald
Rosemary DeCamp
Chuck MacDonald
Dwayne Hickman
Pamela Livingstone
Nancy Kulp
