Richard Cromwell

Richard Cromwell was an American actor known for Emma (1932) and various other films of the 1930s. He is also known for his brief marriage to a then-unknown Angela Lansbury in 1945, which lasted less than a year. Lansbury later stated that Cromwell had told her he was gay, and their marriage has been interpreted as a union of mutual convenience or misunderstanding. He lived quietly in Los Angeles after leaving acting, working as a ceramicist. His story illustrates the way Hollywood marriages were sometimes used by gay men during the studio era.