--- name: "Richard Cromwell" canonical: "https://film.one/person/richard-cromwell" roles: ["Actor"] born: "8 January 1910" died: "11 October 1960" reviewed_on_fi1m: 2 average_fi1m_score: 76 average_as: "actor" average_over: 2 updated: "2026-09-19T23:49:41.330267+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Richard Cromwell Actor. Born 8 January 1910 in Long Beach, California, USA. Died 11 October 1960. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 8 January 1910, Long Beach, California, USA - **Died:** 11 October 1960 - **Active:** 1935–1938 - **Also known as:** LeRoy Melvin Radabaugh, Dick Cromwell, Roy Radabaugh - **Average Fi1m score:** 76, as actor, over 2 titles - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Cromwell_(actor), https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7324974, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0188673/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/20367 ## Fi1m on Richard Cromwell > Richard Cromwell was the gentle, hurt young hero of early sound films, the boy who needed approving of. He played it sincerely and a little too much, and when he outgrew it the good parts stopped. A young lieutenant walks into his father's office in *The Lives of a Bengal Lancer* (1935). The colonel calls him Mr Stone and dismisses him. Richard Cromwell, as the son, lets us see every bit of the hurt; Guy Standing, as the father, lets us see nothing, and the scene belongs to Standing. That was Cromwell's part, and Hollywood gave him versions of it for the best part of a decade: the sensitive boy in the melodrama or the adventure picture, waiting for somebody older to notice him. He came from art school, on a scholarship to the Chouinard Art Institute, and won the lead in *Tol'able David* (1930) in open auditions. Columbia signed him and stardom arrived at once. *Emma* (1932), on loan-out opposite Marie Dressler, kept him rising, and *Bengal Lancer* billed him alongside Gary Cooper and Franchot Tone. After that the parts got smaller and the films got better: Ted Dillard in William Wyler's *Jezebel* (1938), Matt Clay in John Ford's *Young Mr. Lincoln* (1939), both with Henry Fonda. Then the B-pictures of the 1940s, and by the end of that decade he had more or less stopped. What he could do was be wounded on camera, and be believed. The young officer, the defendant, the boy with something to prove: he plays them without irony and without protecting himself, and in a period when leading men were often stiff, that earnestness reads as honesty. What he could not do, at least not in the film we have reviewed, is hold anything back. In *Bengal Lancer* we were moved, and it was the father who moved us, because Standing lets you watch a man deciding not to feel while Cromwell has already decided to feel everything. C. Aubrey Smith, explaining the colonel to the boy, does the same trick. Cromwell is the reason the scene exists and the least interesting person in it. That is a young man's kind of acting, and it depends on a young man's face. Wyler used him twice, Fonda stood next to him twice, and it is telling that his late high points are supporting parts in other men's pictures, where an older star can do the withholding and Cromwell can supply the ache. Once the boyishness went, the studios had no idea what was underneath, and neither, on this evidence, do we. See *Bengal Lancer* for Cooper and Tone bickering and for Standing's office. Watch Cromwell there as the instrument the scene needs rather than the player, and he does the job. It is not a bad thing to have been the boy every old soldier in Hollywood got to ignore. ## Biography Richard Cromwell, born LeRoy Melvin Radabaugh, was an American actor also credited as Dick Cromwell and Roy Radabaugh. He made his film debut in *Tol'able David* (1930) after training at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. Cromwell appeared as Donald Stone in *The Lives of a Bengal Lancer* (1935) with Gary Cooper and Franchot Tone. He later played supporting roles in *Jezebel* (1938) and *Young Mr. Lincoln* (1939). He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. During the Second World War he served in the US Coast Guard. He was married to actress Angela Lansbury from 1945 until their divorce in 1946. Cromwell died in Hollywood in 1960. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (2) - *Jezebel* (1938), Fi1m 78, as Ted Dillard — [page](https://film.one/film/jezebel.md) - *The Lives of a Bengal Lancer* (1935), Fi1m 74, as Donald Stone — [page](https://film.one/film/the-lives-of-a-bengal-lancer.md) ## Complete filmography (40) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Bungalow 13* (1948), as Patrick Macy - *Cosmo Jones, Crime Smasher* (1943), as Sgt. Pat Flanagan - *Baby Face Morgan* (1942), as Edward 'Baby Face' Morgan - *Riot Squad* (1941), as Dr. Tom Brandon - *Parachute Battalion* (1941), as Spence - *The Villain Still Pursued Her* (1940), as Edward Middleton - *Enemy Agent* (1940), as Jimmy Saunders - *Village Barn Dance* (1940), as Dan Martin - *Young Mr. Lincoln* (1939), as Matt Clay - *Breakdowns of 1938* (1938), as Ted Dillard (archive footage) (uncredited) - *Storm Over Bengal* (1938), as Lt. Neil Allison - *Come On, Leathernecks!* (1938), as Jimmy Butler - *Jezebel* (1938), as Ted Dillard — Fi1m 78, [page](https://film.one/film/jezebel.md) - *The Wrong Road* (1937), as Jimmy Caldwell - *Our Fighting Navy* (1937), as Lt. Bill Armstrong - *The Road Back* (1937), as Ludwig - *Poppy* (1936), as Billy Farnsworth - *Annapolis Farewell* (1935), as Boyce Avery - *Unknown Woman* (1935), as Larry Condon - *Men of the Hour* (1935), as Dave Durkin - *Life Begins at Forty* (1935), as Lee Austin - *McFadden´s Flats* (1935), as Sandy MacTavish - *The Lives of a Bengal Lancer* (1935), as Donald Stone — Fi1m 74, [page](https://film.one/film/the-lives-of-a-bengal-lancer.md) - *Among the Missing* (1934), as Tommy Foster - *Name the Woman* (1934), as Clem Rogers - *When Strangers Meet* (1934), as Paul Tarman - *Most Precious Thing in Life* (1934), as Chris Kelsey - *Carolina* (1934), as Allan - *Above the Clouds* (1933), as Dick Robinson - *Hoopla* (1933), as Chris Miller - *This Day and Age* (1933), as Steve Smith - *That's My Boy* (1932), as Thomas Jefferson Scott - *The Age of Consent* (1932), as Michael 'Mike' Harvey - *Tom Brown of Culver* (1932), as Robert Randolph III - *The Strange Love of Molly Louvain* (1932), as James 'Jimmy' Cook - *Emma* (1932), as Ronnie Smith - *Shanghaied Love* (1931), as The Boy - *Fifty Fathoms Deep* (1931), as Pinky Caldwell - *Maker of Men* (1931), as Bob Dudley - *Tol'able David* (1930), as David Kinemon ## Gallery - ![Silent film actor Richard Cromwell. Subjects (LCTGM): actors (1927)](https://film.one/media/person/1228265/gallery-18c0452ba306.jpg) Silent film actor Richard Cromwell. Subjects (LCTGM): actors (1927) — Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/47/Silent_film_actor_Richard_Cromwell_%28SAYRE_22465%29.jpg/1280px-Silent_film_actor_Richard_Cromwell_%28SAYRE_22465%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Photo of Joan Peers and Richard Cromwell in a scene from the 1930 film Tol'able David.](https://film.one/media/person/1228265/gallery-4ebb767dfecf.jpg) Photo of Joan Peers and Richard Cromwell in a scene from the 1930 film Tol'able David. — Columbia Pictures, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Joan_Peers_Richard_Cromwell_Tol%27able_David.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Richard Cromwell](https://film.one/media/person/1228265/gallery-bc65e761e8eb.jpg) Richard Cromwell — Image via TMDB - ![Richard Cromwell](https://film.one/media/person/1228265/gallery-fd8eba8d3958.jpg) Richard Cromwell — Image via TMDB --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/richard-cromwell