Robert Bartleh Cummings (born January 12, 1965), better known by his stage name, Rob Zombie, is an American musician, film director, screenwriter, film producer and writer.

Zombie was born Robert Cummings Jr. to a saleswoman mother and a furniture-crafter father. He has a younger brother, Michael, who is now known as Spider One of the alternative-metal band Powerman 5000. After years working in carnivals, his parents settled down to raise their sons in Haverhill, Massachusetts, a suburban town Zombie considered sinister yet lacking in excitement. He was driven by boredom to watch more than eight hours a day of television and was soon fascinated by horror movies.Their parents work as traveling carnival workers exposed both of the brothers to much of the strange imagery they incorporate into their music. Rob was a sickly child who was not allowed to participate in sports, and was considered the 'weird kid' at his high school.

The day after his high school graduation, Rob  (later to become known as Rob Straker, and finally, Rob Zombie) fled his hometown of Haverhill, MA, for New York City. Both brothers went to college, but Rob dropped out to pursue other interests. He supported himself by doing various odd jobs, including layouts for porn magazines with girlfriend Shauna Reynolds (who would become Sean Yseult), working as a bike messenger, and as a production assistant on PeeWee's Playhouse. Zombie has been a longtime fan of The Ramones, The Misfits, shock-rocker Alice Cooper, British heavy-metal pioneers Black Sabbath and Judas Priest, Metallica and many more. The styles of these musicians continue to be a strong influence on him to this day. Rob attended Parsons The New School for Design in New York and Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.

He founded the heavy metal band White Zombie, and as a solo musician sold a further 15 million albums. Five of his albums have been certified platinum and another two have been certified gold, making him the artist with the most gold and platinum discs on the Geffen Records label. Zombie has also established a successful career as a film director, creating the movies House of 1000 Corpses, The Devil's Rejects,  the 2007 remake of Halloween, Halloween II and The Haunted World Of El Superbeasto.

Personal life

On October 31, 2002 he married long-time girlfriend Sheri Moon (now known as Sheri Moon Zombie) after almost 13 years of dating. The two had met at Toad's Place, a concert venue, in New Haven, Connecticut through mutual friends. Ten days before their planned wedding date, the couple decided to elope and get married on Halloween. She has appeared or starred in all of his films.

Rob Zombie is also a longtime vegetarian after being affected by slaughterhouse footage he saw in high school. For Thanksgiving of 2007, Zombie used his notoriety and joined forces with PETA to record a message with PETA's 2007 holiday hotline. The message itself gave details about the lives and gruesome slaughtering of turkeys and a plea to choose a compassionate alternative for the holiday.

Zombie has many various tattoos forming sleeves on both arms, most of them featuring horror/science fiction imagery. These include the Creature From the Black Lagoon, sinister clowns, demons, and skulls. He designed almost all of the tattoos himself. His most recent tattoo is of a small clown with a popcorn box. The tattoo was done by Rob's tour manager, who is also a tattoo artist.

He currently lives in Woodbury, Connecticut.