who provided "some excellent bits of acting". In November 1932, "Conway" replaced Edwin Styles in the Broadway revue Earl Carroll's Vanities after studying song and dance by correspondence course. Cummings later encouraged an old drama school classmate, Margaret Kies, to use a similar deception – she became the "British" Margaret Lindsay. He later said pretending to be Conway broke up his first marriage, to a girl from Joplin. "She couldn't stand me." He was an extra in the Laurel and Hardy comedy film Sons of the Desert (1933) and in the musical short Seasoned Greetings (1933). Bryce Hutchens Cummings decided to change his approach, when in the words of one report, "suddenly the bottom dropped out of the John Bull market; almost overnight, demand switched from Londoners to lassoers." In 1934, Cummings changed his name to "Bryce Hutchens". He appeared under this name in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1934, which ran from January to June in 1934. He had a duet with Vivi Janiss, a native of Nebraska, with whom he sang "I Like the Likes of You". Cummings and Janiss went with the show when it went on tour after the Broadway run, and they married towards the end of the tour. Paramount The tour of Ziegfeld ended in Los Angeles in January 1935. Cummings enjoyed the city and wanted to move there. He returned to New York, then heard King Vidor was looking for Texan actors for So Red the Rose (1935). He auditioned, pretending to be a Texan, having acquired his own version of a Texan accent by listening to cowboy bands on the radio. His ruse was exposed, but Vidor nevertheless cast him, under his actual name. In their review, The New York Times said that Cummings "does a fine bit" and "has the only convincing accent in the whole film." He followed this with a part in Paramount's The Virginia Judge (1935). In July, the studio signed Cummings to a long-term contract. Before his first two Paramount films were released, he was also cast in a supporting part in Millions in the Air (1935). Cummings appeared as one of the leads in the Western Desert Gold (1936), then had a supporting role in Forgotten Faces (1936) and a starring part in Three Cheers for Love (1936). He also appeared in: Beyond Flight (1936) Hollywood Boulevard (1936) The Accusing Finger (1936) Hideaway Girl (1936) Arizona Mahoney