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Individual:
DeMille was born while his parents were vacationing in Ashfield,
Massachusetts to Henry Churchill DeMille (1853–1893), an Episcopal layminister and playwright from North Carolina, and Matilda BeatriceSamuel (1853–1923), who was born to a Sephardic Jewish family inEngland but converted to her husband's faith. DeMille grew up inPompton, New Jersey and attended Pennsylvania Military College inChester, Pennsylvania beginning at the age of 15. He had an olderbrother, William, and a younger sister who died in childhood, Agnes,after whom William's famous daughter was named.
[edit] Career
DeMille directed dozens of silent films, including Paramount Pictures' first production, The Squaw Man (1914), which was co-directed by OscarApfel, before coming into huge popularity during the late 1910s andearly 1920s, when he reached the apex of his popularity with suchfilms as Don't Change Your Husband (1919), The Ten Commandments(1923), and The King of Kings (1927).
Though most commonly referred to by the press as DeMille with a capital "D", DeMille used "deMille" with a small "d" for his personaldealings. DeMille's business address for most of his career was 2010DeMille (capital "D") Drive, Hollywood, California (which is actuallyin the adjacent Los Angeles neighborhood of Los Feliz). He used thesmall "d" for private correspondence and the capital for his businessand film dealings. In either case, the persona of the larger than lifeshowman was reinforced by such affectations and his status as an iconthrived.
Cecil B. DeMille had a keen eye for talent and was known for being an instrumental catalyst for the rising status of many a struggling orunknown actor. Actor Richard Dix's best-remembered early role was inthe silent version of Demille's The Ten Commandments. Richard Cromwellowed his 1930s movie fame in part to being personally selected byDeMille for the role as the leader of the youth gang in Demille'spoignant, now cult-favorite, This Day and Age (1933).
DeMille displayed a loyalty to certain supporting performers, casting them over and over in his pictures. They included Henry Wilcoxen,Julia Faye, Joseph Schildkraut, Ian Keith, Charles Bickford, TheodoreRoberts, Akim Tamiroff, and William Boyd. He also cast leading actorssuch as Claudette Colbert, Gloria Swanson, Gary Cooper, Jetta Goudal,Robert Preston, Paulette Goddard, and Charlton Heston in multiplepictures. He was not known as a particularly good director of actors,often hiring actors whom he relied on to develop their own charactersand act accordingly.
DeMille also had a reputation for being a tyrant on the set, and he despised actors who were not willing to take physical risks; such wasthe case with Victor Mature in Samson and Delilah, when Mature refusedto wrestle the lion, though the lion was tame and had had its teethpulled. (DeMille remarked that Mature was "100% yellow"). PauletteGoddard's refusal to risk personal injury in a scene involving fire inUnconquered cost her DeMille's favor and probably a role in TheGreatest Show on Earth. DeMille was, however, adept at directing"thousands of extras," and many of his pictures included spectacularset pieces, such as the parting of the Red Sea in both versions of TheTen Commandments; the toppling of the pagan temple in Samson andDelilah; train wrecks in Union Pacific and The Greatest Show on Earth;and the destruction of a zeppelin in Madame Satan. DeMille knew whatthe movie-going public wanted, and he provided it.
DeMille was one of the first directors in Hollywood to become a celebrity in his own right, performing as himself, long before thelikes of Erich von Stroheim and Alfred Hitchcock made it fashionable.From 1936 to 1944, DeMille hosted and even acted as pitchman for CecilB. DeMille's Lux Radio Theater, which was one of the most populardramatic radio shows at the time. Gloria Swanson immortalized DeMillewith the oft-repeated line, "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for myclose-up" in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard, wherein DeMille playedhimself. DeMille also appeared as himself in Paramount's 1947 all-starmusical comedy Variety Girl and he narrated many of his later films,as well as appearing on screen in the introduction to The TenCommandments.
While he continued to be prolific throughout the 1930s and 1940s, he is probably best known for his 1956 film The Ten Commandments (whichis very different from his 1923 film by the same title). Alsorepresentative of his penchant for the spectacular was the 1952production of The Greatest Show on Earth which gave DeMille an Oscarfor best picture and a nomination for best director.
In 1954, Secretary of the Air Force Harold E. Talbott sought out DeMille for help in designing the cadet uniforms at the newlyestablished United States Air Force Academy. DeMille's designs—mostnotably his design of the distinctive cadet parade uniform—won praisefrom Air Force and Academy leadership, were ultimately adopted, andare still worn by cadets today.[1]
Near the end of his life, DeMille began pre-production work on a film biography of Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, the founderof the Boy Scouts, and had asked David Niven to star in the film; thefilm was never made. He asked his son-in-law, actor Anthony Quinn, todirect a remake of his 1938 film The Buccaneer; although DeMilleserved as executive producer, he was very unhappy with Quinn's workand tried unsuccessufully to remedy the situation. Despite a good castled by Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner, and some impressive battlescenes, the film was a disappointment.
[edit] Personal life
DeMille married Constance Adams on 16 August 1902 and had one child, Cecilia. The couple adopted Katherine Lester in the early 1920s; herfather had been killed in World War I and her mother had died oftuberculosis. Katherine married Anthony Quinn. They also adopted twosons, John and Richard.
During on-location filming in Egypt of the exodus sequence for 1956's The Ten Commandments, the then 73 year-old DeMille climbed a 107-footladder to the top of the massive Per Rameses set and suffered a nearfatal heart attack. Miraculously, aided by his daughter Cecilia, butagainst his doctor's orders, he was back directing the film within aweek.
Cecil B. DeMille died of heart failure in January 1959 and was interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, California.At the time of his death, he was negotiating to direct Ben-Hur forMGM, and was planning to direct a movie about space travel.
DeMille's mansion in Wayne, New Jersey was recently demolished, although the gatehouse has been transformed into a modest-size home,currently occupied by child actor Ryan Ward from the AcademyAward-nominated film Far From Heaven.
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- Title: WorldConnect of Rootsweb
Publication: http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com
Page: T A Blount etshome6@aol.com
- Title: Wikipedia, Internet Encyclopedia
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