[318], Cecil B. DeMille made 70 features. [38], In 1902, he played a small part in Hamlet. Just two years before his death, and shortly after the release of his last film, The Ten Commandments, he delivered a commencement address at Brigham Young University. Despite his loss, DeMille continued to lobby for the TaftHartley Act, which passed. [231][note 14] The Ten Commandments inspired DreamWorks Animation's later film about Moses, The Prince of Egypt. [51] In 1911, DeMille became acquainted with vaudeville producer Jesse Lasky when Lasky was searching for a writer for his new musical. Cecil B. DeMille's "Ten Commandments" is getting appropriately colossal treatment in honor of its 55th anniversary. DeMille himself directed twenty films by 1915. It was the longest (3 hours, 39 minutes) and most expensive ($13million) film in Paramount history. [231] DeMille's distinctive style can be seen through camera and lighting effects as early as The Squaw Man with the use of daydream images; moonlight and sunset on a mountain; and side-lighting through a tent flap. [306] DeMille received a Golden Globe Award for Best Director[314] and was additionally nominated for the Best Director category at the 1953 Academy Awards for the same film. finding aid. Cecil B. DeMille American film director (1881-1959) . He joined the Producers Distributing Corporation. [111], The immense popularity of DeMille's silent films enabled him to branch out into other areas. Mature refused to wrestle Jackie the Lion, even though DeMille had just tussled with the lion, proving that he was tame. [101], After five years and thirty hit films, DeMille became the American film industry's most successful director. He is one of the most extraordinarily able showmen of modern times. "[265] Said fellow director William Wellman: "Directorially, I think his pictures were the most horrible things I've ever seen in my life. Perhaps Cecil B. DeMille is more responsible for this than are today's preachers.' 13. [117] He also popularized the camera crane. [91] Although DeMille considered enlisting in World War I, he stayed in the United States and made films. [144], In 1942, DeMille released Paramount's most successful film, Reap the Wild Wind. Between 1914 and 1956, he made seventy feature films; all but seven were profitable. [290][note 16] Donated by the Cecil B. DeMille Foundation in 2004, the moving image collection of Cecil B. DeMille is held at the Academy Film Archive and includes home movies, outtakes, and never-before-seen test footage. Then, he would help writers construct a script. He is particularly remembered for his 1956 film "The Ten Commandments", but made over 70 films throughout his long career. [49] In the 1910s, DeMille began directing and producing other writer's plays. [232] In the early age of cinema, DeMille differentiated the Lasky Company from other production companies due to the use of dramatic, low-key lighting they called "Lasky lighting" and marketed as "Rembrandt lighting" to appeal to the public. The film was considered a "masterpiece" and surpassed the quality of other sound films of the time. DeMille's mother sent him to Pennsylvania Military College (now Widener University) in Chester, Pennsylvania, at age 15. [187] DeMille produced the majority of his films before the 1930s, and by the time sound films were invented, film critics saw DeMille as antiquated, with his best filmmaking years behind him. [28] This was the first of few film collaborations with his brother William. [18] DeMille and William collaborated on The Genius, The Royal Mounted, and After Five. [61], The Lasky Play Company sought out William DeMille to join the company, but he rejected the offer because he did not believe there was any promise in a film career. [47] DeMille sometimes worked with the director E.H. Sothern, who influenced DeMille's later perfectionism in his work. He went before the Paramount board of directors, which was mostly Jewish-American. [236][189][237], Aside from his Biblical and historical epics which are concerned with how man relates to God, some of DeMille's films contained themes of "neo-naturalism" which portray the conflict between the laws of man and the laws of nature. DeMille served as executive producer but could not improve Quinn's style of direction. "[266] Producer David O. Selznick wrote: "There has appeared only one Cecil B. DeMille. DeMille would stick to his large-budget spectaculars for the rest of his career. The Enigmatic Pop Culture Professional. [151] DeMille would reminisce into a voice recorder, the recording would be transcribed, and the information would be organized in the biography based on the topic. [337], Charles Frohman, Constance Adams, and David Belasco, Scandalous dramas, Biblical epics, and departure from Paramount, There are several variants of DeMille's surname. Of his seventy films, five revolved around stories of the Bible and the New Testament; however many others, while not direct retellings of Biblical stories, had themes of faith and religious fanaticism in films such as The Crusades and The Road to Yesterday. (1950) $10,000. Alfred Hitchcock cited DeMille's 1921 film Forbidden Fruit as an influence of his work and one of his top ten favorite films. Chromium. Biography - A Short WikiDirector of the epic 1956 film The Ten Commandments, which featured Charlton Heston as Moses. [271] DeMille was immortalized in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard when Gloria Swanson spoke the line: "All right, Mr. DeMille. The American Academy of Dramatic Arts honored DeMille with an Alumni Achievement Award in 1958. [300] In 1963, the Cecil B. DeMille Foundation donated the "Paradise" ranch to the Hathaway Foundation, which cares for emotionally disturbed and abused children. [14], DeMille's parents met as members of a music and literary society in New York. 16 references. DeMille's highest-grossing films include: The Sign of the Cross (1932), Unconquered (1947), Samson and Delilah (1949), The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), and The Ten Commandments (1956). Director John Huston intensely disliked both DeMille and his films. She later became the second female play broker on Broadway. Billy Jim Hawkins . These films represent those which DeMille produced or assisted in directing, credited or uncredited. DeMille: The Master of the American Biblical Epic . U.S. State: Massachusetts. [10] He worked as a playwright, administrator, and faculty member during the early years of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, established in New York City in 1884. [64] The Lasky Company bought the rights to the play The Squaw Man by Edwin Milton Royle and cast Dustin Farnum in the lead role. [41] The Return of Peter Grimm sparked controversy; however, because Belasco had taken DeMille's unnamed screenplay, changed the characters and named it The Return of Peter Grimm, producing and presenting it as his own work. [252], Despite his box-office success, awards, and artistic achievements, DeMille has been dismissed and ignored by critics both during his life and posthumously. DeMille served as executive producer, overseeing producer Henry Wilcoxon. [244] Another minor characteristic of DeMille's films include train crashes which can be found in several of his films. [36][note 6], Film started becoming more sophisticated and the subsequent films of the Lasky company were criticized for primitive and unrealistic set design. Spanish Wikipedia. Moreover, DeMille's epics inspired directors such as Howard Hawks, Nicholas Ray, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and George Stevens to try producing epics. Cecil B. DeMille real name: Cecil Blount DeMille Height: 5'11''(in feet & inches) 1.8034(m) 180.34(cm) , Birthdate(Birthday): August 12, 1881 , Age on January 21, 1959 (Death date): 77 Years 5 Months 9 Days Profession: Movies (Director), Also working as: Producer, Director, Editor, Screenwriter, Actor, Father: Henry Churchill de Mille, Mother: Matilda Beatrice deMille, Married: Yes, Children: Yes He bought the rights to the novel in 1925, but abandoned the project in pre-production. DeMille did not believe a large movie set was the place to discuss minor character or line issues. DeMille discovered the possibilities of the "bathroom" or "boudoir" in film without being "vulgar" or "cheap". He had completely adapted to the production of sound film despite the film's poor dialogue. The Ten Commandments gave the director a chance to play God, to film miracles. Robert Birchard wrote that one could argue auteurship of DeMille on the basis that DeMille's thematic and visual style remained consistent throughout his career. DeMille's primary criticism was of closed shops, but later included criticism of communism and unions in general. DeMille's film The Affairs of Anatol came under fire. [102] Many of his films featured scenes in two-color Technicolor. He directed 70 feature films, beginning in the silent era . Barbara Stanwyck. Between 1913 and 1956, he made a total of 70 features, both silent and sound films.He is acknowledged as a founding father of the cinema of the United States and the most commercially successful producer-director in film history. vigilantes and fulminating fanatics suffering flock shock and who wanted to shut down 1920s Hollywood because of the cause clbre scandals . Next, he would work with writers to develop the story that he was envisioning. Friday 12 Aug 1881. Cecil B. DeMille's trademark films were Biblical and historical dramas, usually told in sweeping, big-budget scale, emblematic of overwrought Hollywood hugeness. [228] DeMille was often criticized for making his spectacles too colorful and for being too occupied with entertaining the audience rather than accessing the artistic and auteur possibilities that film could provide. 1. "A dreadful showoff. On January 8, 1893, at age 40, Henry de Mille died suddenly from typhoid fever, leaving Beatrice with three children. Famous Players-Lasky donated the films. [249] Similarly, scholar David Blanke, argued that DeMille had lost the respect of his colleagues and film critics by his late film career. This occurred with Victor Mature in Samson and Delilah. [113][295] The former film building at Chapman University in Orange, California, is named in honor of DeMille. "[257] The critic Camille Paglia has called The Ten Commandments one of the ten greatest films of all time. The legendary comedian, 61, has been confirmed to receive one of the night's highest honors, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, given as a way to honor "outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment," per the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. This was, according to DeMille, the lowest point of his career. The second star is located at 1725 Vine Street. He is from USA. This allowed for the rapid production of his films in the early years of the Lasky Company. 27 October 2022. [203], DeMille often edited in a manner that favored psychological space rather than physical space through his cuts. Still, it was a huge success at the box office. [22] Agnes would die on February 11, 1894, at the age of three from spinal meningitis. [284] Although many of DeMille's films are available on DVD and Blu-ray release, only 20 of his silent films are commercially available on DVD [285][note 15], The original Lasky-DeMille Barn in which The Squaw Man was filmed was converted into a museum named the "Hollywood Heritage Museum". Cecil B DeMille Bio Details. [268] DeMille appeared as himself in numerous films, including the MGM comedy Free and Easy. They also learned that other filmmakers were successfully shooting in Los Angeles, even in winter. In addition to his use of volatile and abrupt film editing, his lighting and composition were innovative for the time period as filmmakers were primarily concerned with a clear, realistic image. He related a story that he maintained his self-control when Gloria Swanson sat on his lap, refusing to touch her. DeMille was variously declared 'the master of the religious epic', 14. the 'arch apostle of spectacle', 15. and the 'King of the epic Biblical spectacular', 16. as also [317], Two of DeMille's films have been selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress: The Cheat (1915) and The Ten Commandments (1956). Cecil Blount DeMille ( August 12, 1881 - January 21, 1959) was an American filmmaker. [281] However, not everyone received DeMille's religious films favorably. The longest-living Oscar winner is a recipient of the Golden Globes' prestigious Cecil B. DeMille Award, which he was awarded in 1977, and he received the Producers Guild of America's Lifetime . [6] He was the second of three children of Henry Churchill de Mille (September 4, 1853 February 10, 1893) and his wife Matilda Beatrice deMille (ne Samuel; January 30, 1853 October 8, 1923), known as Beatrice. The first 24 of his silent films were made in the first three years of his career (1913-1916). The Union Pacific gave DeMille access to historical data, early period trains, and expert crews, adding to the authenticity of the film. [177] Cecilia lived in the house for many years until her death in 1984,[178] but the house was auctioned by his granddaughter Cecilia DeMille Presley who also lived there in the late 1980s. Maude Fealy would appear as the featured actress in several productions that summer and would develop a lasting friendship with DeMille. DeMille was born in Ashfield, Massachusetts, and grew up in New York City. DeMille also was planning a film about the space race as well as another biblical epic about the Book of Revelation. [59] Lasky and DeMille were said to have sketched out the organization of the company on the back of a restaurant menu. [258], DeMille was one of the first directors to become a celebrity in his own right. He donated. [274] DeMille has influenced the careers of many modern directors. [308] In 1952, DeMille was awarded the first Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes. Finally, he would leave the script with artists and allow them to create artistic depictions and renderings of each scene. Despite its quick turnaround, the film was fairly successful. A censorship board called the Hays Code was established. heart failure. Consequently, he focused his efforts on his films' visuals. The Captive (1915) $500 /week. [192] DeMille had large and frequent office conferences to discuss and examine all aspects of the working film including story-boards, props, and special effects. cause of death. However, Birchard acknowledged that Sarris's point was more likely that DeMille's style was behind the development of film as an art form. Cecil Blount DeMille. Date of Death: January 21, 1959. He said he was rather against union leaders such as Walter Reuther and Harry Bridges whom he compared to dictators. . [41] His first play was The Pretender-A Play in a Prologue and 4 Acts set in seventeenth century Russia. [170] DeMille's autobiography was mostly completed by the time DeMille died and was published in November 1959. After Henry DeMille's death at age 40, Cecil's mother, Beatrice, ran a well-known boarding school for girls in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey. [27] Before Henry deMille's death, Beatrice had "enthusiastically supported" her husband's theatrical aspirations. Adams was 29 years old at the time of their marriage, eight years older than DeMille. [195] DeMille was adept at directing "thousands of extras",[113] and many of his pictures include spectacular set pieces: the toppling of the pagan temple in Samson and Delilah;[196] train wrecks in The Road to Yesterday,[197] Union Pacific[198] and The Greatest Show on Earth;[199] the destruction of an airship in Madam Satan;[200] and the parting of the Red Sea in both versions of The Ten Commandments. "Give me any two pages of the Bible, and I'll give you a picture." -Cecil B. DeMille. Studio: A Cecil B. DeMille Production Paramount Pictures Premiered: February 4, 1938 Featured Cast: Fredric March, Franciska Gaal, Akim Tamiroff Producer-director: Cecil B. DeMille Screenwriter: Harold Lamb, Edwin Justus Mayer, C. Gardner Sullivan Source: Lyle Saxon's book Lafitte the Pirate Additional writers: Emily Barrye, Grover Jones, Jesse Lasky Jr., Jeanie Macpherson, Preston . The mistress could not keep the boy due to her tuberculosis. Henry, a . Consequently, his mother hired him for her agency The DeMille Play Company and taught him how to be an agent and a playwright. education: American Academy Of Dramatic Arts, Pennsylvania Military College. Along with biblical and historical narratives, he also directed films oriented toward "neo-naturalism", which tried to portray the laws of man fighting the forces of nature. [187] It is difficult to typify DeMille's films into one specific genre. Film Director. [62] They offered Farnum a choice to have a quarter stock in the company (similar to William deMille) or $250 per week as salary. [247] Adjusted for inflation, DeMille's remake of The Ten Commandments is the eighth highest-grossing film in the world. [11] Henry deMille frequently collaborated with David Belasco in playwriting;[12] their best-known collaborations included "The Wife", "Lord Chumley", "The Charity Ball", and "Men and Women". Noisy and bright, it was not well-liked by critics, but was a favorite among audiences. Considered one of the founders of Hollywood, film producer and director Cecil B. DeMille (1881-1959) earned a place in moviemaking history with such religious epic films as The Ten Commandmentsand King of Kings.. Film Director. [107] Aside from The King of Kings, none of DeMille's films away from Paramount were successful. Cause of death: Heart failure: Nationality: American: Occupation: Producer, director, editor, screenwriter, actor: Years active: 1913-1959: Spouse(s) Constance Adams . Cecil B. DeMille Birthday and Date of Death. [179][note 12], DeMille believed his first influences to be his parents, Henry and Beatrice DeMille. Martin Scorsese recalled that DeMille had the skill to maintain control of not only the lead actors in a frame but the many extras in the frame as well. Consequently, the film was never made. Furthermore, DeMille argued with Zukor over his extravagant and over-budget production costs. [211] He despised actors who were unwilling to take physical risks, especially when he had first demonstrated that the required stunt would not harm them. [78] In December 1914, Constance Adams brought home John DeMille, a fifteen-month-old, whom the couple legally adopted three years later. [182] DeMille noted that his mother had a "high sense of the dramatic" and was determined to continue the artistic legacy of her husband after he died. [275] Scorsese said he had viewed The Ten Commandments forty or fifty times. With this year's Oscar nominations soon to be announced, we take a look back at his cinematic extraganzas. Radford, Bill. [130] From 1936 to 1945, he produced, hosted, and directed all shows with the occasional exception of a guest director. "A Digger, A Director and A Practical Joker". [49] DeMille had a daughter, Cecilia, on November 5, 1908, who would be his only biological child. [93] [note 5] In 1922, the couple adopted Richard deMille. Born in 1881, DeMille made his directorial debut with "The Squaw Man" (1914), a story he remade in 1918 and 1931 . 21 January 1959. [138] Critics were impressed with the visuals but found the scripts dull, calling it DeMille's "poorest Western". Death: December 20, 1982 (68) Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California, United States. Immediate Family: Biological son of Gus Gonzales and Ada Piper. Cecil B. DeMille was born on August 12, 1881 in Ashfield, Massachusetts, U.S., United States, is Film Director, Producer. However, this version is actually a 1918 re-release. List of the best Cecil B. DeMille movies: The Ten Commandments(1956), The Godless Girl(1929), The Golden Bed(1925), Union Pacific(1939), Unconquered(1947), Male and Female(1919), The Plainsman(1936), The Whispering Chorus(1918), The Ten Commandments(1923), Samson and Delilah(1949), The Story of Dr. Wassell(1944), Reap the Wild Wind(1942 . William had been a successful playwright, but DeMille was suffering from the failure of his plays The Royal Mounted and The Genius. His father, Henry Churchill de Mille (1853-1893), was a North Carolina-born dramatist and lay reader in the Episcopal Church, who had earlier . Jeakins admitted that she received quality training from him, but that it was necessary to become a perfectionist on a DeMille set to avoid being fired. In March 1938, he underwent a major emergency prostatectomy. Despite the urging of his associate producer, DeMille wanted to return to the set right away. [47] In 1907, due to a scandal with one of Beatrice's students, Evelyn Nesbit, the Henry deMille School lost students. He was her mentor, while she was for many years his mistress (a liaison which was tolerated by De Mille's long-suffering wife Constance Adams ). DeMille had adopted him to avoid revealing the affairs to William's wife. [29] He fled the school to join the SpanishAmerican War, but failed to meet the age requirement. [160] Production of The Ten Commandments began in October 1954. [105] Consequently, DeMille left Paramount in 1924 despite having helped establish it. [15] The two were married on July 1, 1876, despite Beatrice's parents' objections because of the young couple's differing religions; Beatrice converted to Episcopalianism. Cecil Blount DeMille (August 12, 1881 - January 21, 1959) was an American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. Cecil Blount deMille, 12 th August 1881, Ashfield, Massachusetts, USA. Find out about Cecil B DeMille's family tree, family history, ancestry, ancestors, genealogy, relationships and affairs! Hijo del dramaturgo Henry Churchill DeMille, en cuyas obras particip durante su infancia y primera adolescencia, curs . Mrs. DeMille's office and library opened to the music room. [255] Andrew Sarris, a leading proponent of the auteur theory, ranked DeMille highly as an auteur in the "Far Side of Paradise", just below the "Pantheon". Broadway Actor. DeMille was painstakingly attentive to details on set and was as critical of himself as he was of his crew. The star was being honored with the Cecil B. DeMille award, which was presented to her by Reese Witherspoon, her co-star in the upcoming Disney film A Wrinkle in Time. [242] Another common theme in DeMille's films is the reversal of fortune and the portrayal of the rich and the poor, including the war of the classes and man versus society conflicts such as in The Golden Chance and The Cheat. DeMille traveled abroad to find employment until he was offered a deal at Paramount. [184] While working in theatre, DeMille used real fruit trees in his play California as influenced by Belasco. DeMille recalled that this church was the place where he visualized the story of his 1923 version of The Ten Commandments.[25]. Beatrice was intelligent, educated, forthright, and strong-willed. [208] DeMille had an authoritarian persona on set; he required absolute attention from the cast and crew. [30] DeMille attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (tuition-free due to his father's service to the Academy). [79][note 3], Cecil B. DeMille's second film credited exclusively to him was The Virginian. He was an active Freemason and member of Prince of Orange Lodge #16 in New York City.[1]. He attempted to create a guild of a half a dozen directors with the same creative desires called the Director's Guild. [228] Throughout his career, he did not alter his films to better adhere to contemporary or popular styles. [231], According to Scott Eyman, DeMille's films were at the same time masculine and feminine due to his thematic adventurousness and his eye for the extravagant.
