According to his niece, Joan Radabaugh, Cromwell was a very heavy smoker. Nevertheless, at his home he was always the gracious host, as his niece related, and as such he took great care to empty the ashtrays regularly, almost to the point of obsession. Next up, was an early standout performance by Cromwell in the role as the leader of the youth gang in Cecil B. DeMille's now cult-favorite, "This Day and Age" (1933). To ensure that Cromwell's character used current slang, DeMille asked high school student Horace Hahn to read the script and comment (at the time, Hahn was senior class president at Los Angeles High School). While again on loan from Columbia, Cromwell's by then salary of $200 per week was paid by Paramount Pictures, DeMille's studio. Diana Serra Cary, in her biography of Jackie Coogan, relates an episode on the set wherein Cromwell came to the aid of actress Judith Allen: I watched as he (DeMille) systematically reduced ingenue ... Allen to screaming hysterics by calling her every insulting name in the book in front of company and crew simply to bring on tears ... Cromwell was the only man on the set who dared confront the tyrannical DeMille. White with rage, Cromwell stopped the scene and threatened to deck him if he didn't let up on the devastated girl. He (Cromwell) then drove her home himself. After that courageous act the chivalric Cromwell was unanimously praised as a veritable dragon slayer by everyone who had witnessed that scene. After a promising start, Cromwell's many early pictures at Columbia Pictures and elsewhere were mostly inconsequential and are largely forgotten today. Cromwell starred with Will Rogers in "Life Begins at 40" for Fox Film Corporation in 1935, it was one of Rogers' last roles and "Poppy" for Paramount in 1936 wherein Cromwell played the suitor of W.C. Fields' daughter, Rochelle Hudson. In 1937, he was the young bank-robber in love with Helen Mack and on the lam from Lionel Atwill in "The Wrong Road" for RKO. In 1936, Cromwell took a detour in his career to Broadway for the chance to star as an evil cadet in an original play by Joseph Viertel, entitled, "So Proudly We Hail". The military drama was directed by future film director Charles Walters, co-starred Edward Andrews and Eddie Bracken, and opened to much fanfare.