Cecil B. DeMille (Director) – Overview, Biography

Name:Cecil B. DeMille
Occupation: Director
Gender:Male
Birth Day: August 12,
1881
Death Date:Jan 21, 1959 (age 77)
Age: Aged 77
Country: United States
Zodiac Sign:Leo

Cecil B. DeMille

Cecil B. DeMille was born on August 12, 1881 in United States (77 years old). Cecil B. DeMille is a Director, zodiac sign: Leo. Nationality: United States. Approx. Net Worth: $50 Million.

Brief Info

Director of the epic 1956 film The Ten Commandments, which featured Charlton Heston as Moses. Cecil B. DeMille’s other well known films include The Sign of the Cross (1932), Cleopatra (1934), Samson and Delilah (1949) and The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Trivia

The Cecil B. Demille Award at the Golden Globes is named in his honor and is given in recognition of a lifetime achievement in filmmaking. Cecil B. DeMille was the first recipient of the award.

Net Worth 2020

$50 Million
Find out more about Cecil B. DeMille net worth here.

Does Cecil B. DeMille Dead or Alive?

As per our current Database, Cecil B. DeMille died on Jan 21, 1959 (age 77).

Physique

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Before Fame

Cecil B. DeMille began his entertainment career as a stage actor. Cecil B. DeMille directed his first silent film in 1914 after having written and directed plays.

Biography

Biography Timeline

1881

Cecil Blount DeMille was born on August 12, 1881, in a boarding house on Main Street in Ashfield, Massachusetts, where his parents had been vacationing for the summer. On September 1, 1881, the family returned with newborn DeMille to their flat in New York. DeMille was named after his grandmothers Cecelia Wolff and Margarete Blount. He was the second of three children of Henry Churchill de Mille (September 4, 1853 – February 10, 1893) and his wife Matilda Beatrice deMille (née Samuel; January 30, 1853 – October 8, 1923), known as Beatrice. His brother, William C. DeMille, was born on July 25, 1878. Henry deMille, whose ancestors were of Dutch-Belgian descent, was a North Carolina-born dramatist, actor, and lay reader in the Episcopal Church. DeMille’s father was also an English teacher at Columbia College (now Columbia University). 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.

1891

DeMille was a brave and confident child. He gained his love of theater while watching his father and Belasco rehearse their plays and a lasting memory for DeMille was a lunch with his father and actor Edwin Booth. As a child, DeMille created an alter-ego called “Champion Driver”, a Robin Hood-like character, evidence of his creativity and imagination. The family lived in Washington, North Carolina, until Henry built a three-story Victorian-style house for his family in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey; they named this estate “Pamlico”. John Philip Sousa was a friend of the family and DeMille recalled throwing mud balls in the air so neighbor Annie Oakley could practice her shooting. DeMille’s sister Agnes was born on April 23, 1891; his mother nearly did not survive the birth. Agnes would die on February 11, 1894, at the age of three from spinal meningitis. DeMille’s parents operated a private school in town and attended Christ Episcopal Church. DeMille recalled that this church was the place where he visualized the story of his 1923 version of The Ten Commandments.

1893

On January 8, 1893, at the age of forty, Henry de Mille died suddenly from typhoid fever, leaving Beatrice with three children. To provide for her family, she opened the Henry C. DeMille School for Girls in her home in February 1893. The aim of the school was to teach young women to properly understand and fulfill the women’s duty to herself, her home, and her country. Before Henry deMille’s death, Beatrice had “enthusiastically supported” her husband’s theatrical aspirations. She later became the second female play broker on Broadway. On Henry DeMille’s deathbed, he told his wife that he did not want his sons to become playwrights due to its uncertainty and disappointment as a career. In order to cultivate DeMille’s education and life skills, DeMille’s mother sent him to Pennsylvania Military College (now Widener University) in Chester, Pennsylvania, at the age of fifteen. He fled school to join the Spanish–American War, but failed to meet the age requirement. DeMille was a neat, intelligent, athletic, and determined adolescent. At the military college, even though his grades were average, he reportedly excelled in personal conduct. DeMille (Class of 1900) attended and graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where he attended for free due to his father’s service to the Academy. His graduation performance was the play The Arcady Trail. In the audience was Charles Frohman who would cast DeMille in his play Hearts are Trumps, DeMille’s Broadway debut.

1900

Cecil B. DeMille began his career as an actor on the stage in the theatrical company of Charles Frohman in 1900. He debuted as an actor on February 21, 1900, in the play Hearts Are Trumps at New York’s Garden Theater. In 1901, DeMille starred in productions of A Repentance, To Have and to Hold, and Are You a Mason? At the age of twenty-one, Cecil B. DeMille married Constance Adams on August 16, 1902 at Adams’s father’s home in East Orange, New Jersey. The wedding party was small and Beatrice deMille’s family was not in attendance. It was suggested by Simon Louvish that this was to conceal DeMille’s Jewish heritage. Adams was 29 years old at the time of their marriage, eight years older than DeMille. They had met in a theater in Washington D.C. while they were both acting in Hearts Are Trumps.

1902

In 1902, he played a small part in Hamlet. Publicists wrote that he became an actor in order to learn how direct and produce, but DeMille admitted that he became an actor in order to pay the bills. From 1904 to 1905, DeMille attempted to make a living as a stock theatre actor with his wife Constance. DeMille made a 1905 reprise in Hamlet as Osric. His brother William was establishing himself as a playwright and sometimes invited him to collaborate. DeMille and William collaborated on The Genius, The Royal Mounted, and After Five. However, none of these were very successful; William deMille was most successful when he worked alone. DeMille and his brother at times worked with the legendary impresario David Belasco, who had been a friend and collaborator of their father. DeMille would later adapt Belasco’s The Girl of the Golden West and Rose of the Rancho, and The Warrens of Virginia into films. DeMille was credited with creating the premise of Belasco’s The Return of Peter Grimm. 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. DeMille was credited in small print as “based on an idea by Cecil DeMille”. The play was successful and DeMille was distraught that his childhood idol had plagiarized his work.

1907

DeMille performed on stage with actors whom he would later direct in films: Charlotte Walker, Mary Pickford, and Pedro de Cordoba. DeMille also produced and directed plays. His 1905 performance in The Prince Chap as the Earl of Huntington was well received by audiences. DeMille wrote a few of his own plays in-between stage performances, but his playwriting was not as successful. His first play was The Pretender-A Play in a Prologue and 4 Acts set in the seventeenth century Russia. Another unperformed play he wrote was Son of the Winds, a mythological Native American story. Life was difficult for DeMille and his wife as traveling actors; however, traveling allowed him to experience part of the United States he had not yet seen. DeMille sometimes worked with the director E.H. Sothern, who influenced DeMille’s later perfectionism in his work. In 1907, due to a scandal with one of Beatrice’s students, Evelyn Nesbit, the Henry deMille School lost students. The school closed and Beatrice filed for bankruptcy. DeMille wrote another play originally called Sergeant Devil May Care which was renamed The Royal Mounted. He also toured with the Standard Opera Company, but there are few records to indicate DeMille’s singing ability. DeMille had a daughter, Cecilia, on November 5, 1908, who would be his only biological child. In the 1910s, DeMille began directing and producing other writer’s plays.

1911

DeMille was poor and struggled to find work. Consequently, his mother hired him for her agency The DeMille Play Company and taught him how to be an agent and a playwright. Eventually, he became manager of the agency and later, a junior partner with his mother. In 1911, DeMille became acquainted with vaudeville producer Jesse Lasky when Lasky was searching for a writer for his new musical. He initially sought out William deMille. William had been a successful playwright, but DeMille was suffering from the failure of his plays The Royal Mounted and The Genius. However, Beatrice introduced Lasky to DeMille instead. The collaboration of DeMille and Lasky produced a successful musical called California which opened in New York in January 1912. Another DeMille-Lasky production that opened in January 1912 was The Antique Girl. DeMille found success in the spring of 1913 producing Reckless Age by Lee Wilson, a play about a high society girl wrongly accused of manslaughter starring Frederick Burton and Sydney Shields. However, changes in the theater rendered DeMille’s melodramas obsolete before they were produced, and true theatrical success eluded him. He produced many flops. Having become disinterested in working in theatre, DeMille’s passion for film was ignited when he watched the 1912 French film Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth.

1913

Desiring a change of scene, Cecil B. DeMille, Jesse Lasky, Sam Goldfish (later Samuel Goldwyn), and a group of East Coast businessmen created the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company in 1913 over which DeMille became director-general. Lasky and DeMille were said to have sketched out the organization of the company on the back of a restaurant menu. As director-general, DeMille’s job was to make the films. In addition to directing, DeMille was the supervisor and consultant for the first year of films made by the Lasky Feature Play Company. Sometimes, he directed scenes for other directors at the Feature Play Company in order to release films on time. Moreover, when he was busy directing other films, he would co-author other Lasky Company scripts as well as create screen adaptations that others directed.

On December 12, 1913, DeMille, his cast, and crew boarded a Southern Pacific train bound for Flagstaff via New Orleans. His tentative plan was to shoot a film in Arizona, but he felt that Arizona did not typify the Western look they were searching for. They also learned that other filmmakers were successfully shooting in Los Angeles, even in winter. He continued to Los Angeles. Once there, he chose not to shoot in Edendale, where many studios were, but in Hollywood. DeMille rented a barn to function as their film studio. Filming began on December 29, 1913, and lasted three weeks. Apfel filmed most of The Squaw Man due to DeMille’s inexperience; however, DeMille learned quickly and was particularly adept at impromptu screenwriting as necessary. He made his first film run sixty minutes, as long as a short play. The Squaw Man (1914), co-directed by Oscar Apfel, was a sensation and it established the Lasky Company. This was the first feature-length film made in Hollywood. There were problems; however, with the perforation of the film stock and it was discovered the DeMille had brought a cheap British film projector. DeMille would later need to be sure to punch in sixty-five holes per foot instead of the industry-standard sixty-four. This was also the first American feature film; however, only by release date, as D. W. Griffith’s Judith of Bethulia was filmed earlier than The Squaw Man, but released later. Additionally, this was the only film in which DeMille shared director’s credit with Oscar C. Apfel.

1914

The Squaw Man was a success, which led to the eventual founding of Paramount Pictures and Hollywood becoming the “film capital of the world”. The film grossed over ten times its budget after its New York premiere in February 1914. DeMille’s next project was to aid Oscar Apfel and directing Brewster’s Millions, which was wildly successful. In December 1914, Constance Adams brought home John DeMille, a fifteen-month-old, whom the couple legally adopted three years later. Biographer Scott Eyman suggested that this may have been a result of Adams’s recent miscarriage.

1915

While filming The Captive in 1915, an extra, Bob Fleming, died on set when another extra failed to heed to DeMille’s orders to unload all guns for rehearsal. DeMille instructed the guilty man to leave town and would never reveal his name. Lasky and DeMille maintained the widow Fleming on the payroll; however, according to leading actor House Peters Sr. DeMille refused to stop production for the funeral of Fleming. Peters claimed that he encouraged the cast to attend the funeral with him anyway since DeMille would not be able to shoot the film without him. On July 19, 1916, the Jesse Lasky Feature Play Company merged with Adolph Zukor’s Famous Players Film Company, becoming Famous Players-Lasky. Zukor became president with Lasky as the vice president. DeMille was maintained as director-general and Goldwyn became chairman of the board. Goldwyn was later fired from Famous Players-Lasky due to frequent clashes with Lasky, DeMille, and finally Zukor. While on a European vacation in 1921, DeMille contracted rheumatic fever in Paris. He was confined to bed and unable to eat. His poor physical condition upon his return home affected the production of his 1922 film Manslaughter. According to Richard Birchard, DeMille’s weakened state during production may have led to the film being received as uncharacteristically substandard.

1916

DeMille’s most successful film was The Cheat; DeMille’s direction in the film was acclaimed. In 1916, exhausted from three years of nonstop filmmaking, DeMille purchased land in the Angeles National Forest for a ranch which would become his getaway. He called this place, “Paradise”, declaring it a wildlife sanctuary; no shooting of animals was allowed besides snakes. His wife did not like Paradise, so DeMille often brought his mistresses there with him including actress Julia Faye. In addition to his Paradise, DeMille purchased a yacht in 1921 which he called The Seaward.

The immense popularity of DeMille’s silent films enabled him to branch out into other areas. The Roaring Twenties were the boom years and DeMille took full advantage, opening the Mercury Aviation Company, one of America’s first commercial airlines. He was also a real estate speculator, an underwriter of political campaigns, and vice president of Bank of America. He was additionally vice president of the Commercial National Trust and Savings Bank in Los Angeles where he approved loans for other filmmakers. In 1916, DeMille purchased a mansion in Hollywood. Charlie Chaplin lived next door for a time, and after he moved, DeMille purchased the other house and combined the estates.

1917

Film started becoming more sophisticated and the subsequent films of the Lasky company were criticized for primitive and unrealistic set design. Consequently, Beatrice deMille introduced the Famous Players-Lasky to Wilfred Buckland, who DeMille had known from his time at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and he became DeMille’s art director. William deMille reluctantly became a story editor. William deMille would later convert from theater to Hollywood and would spend the rest of his career as a film director. Throughout his career, DeMille would frequently remake his own films. In his first instance, in 1917, he remade The Squaw Man (1918), only waiting four years from the 1914 original. Despite its quick turnaround, the film was fairly successful. However, DeMille’s second remake at MGM in 1931 would be a failure.

1920

During World War I, the Famous Players-Lasky organized a military company underneath the National Guard called the Home Guard made up of film studio employees with DeMille as captain. Eventually, the Guard was promoted to a battalion and recruited soldiers from other film studios. They took time off weekly from film production to practice military drills. Additionally, during the war, DeMille volunteered for the Justice Department’s Intelligence Office, investigating friends, neighbors, and others he came in contact with in connection with the Famous Players-Lasky. He volunteered for the Intelligence Office during World War II as well. Although DeMille considered enlisting in World War I, he stayed in the United States and made films. However, he did take a few months to set up a movie theater for the French front. Famous Players-Lasky donated the films. DeMille and Adams adopted Katherine Lester in 1920 whom Adams had found in the orphanage over which she was the director. In 1922, the couple adopted Richard deMille.

1923

After five years and thirty hit films, DeMille became the American film industry’s most successful director. In the silent era, he was renowned for Male and Female (1919), Manslaughter (1922), The Volga Boatman (1926), and The Godless Girl (1928). DeMille’s trademark scenes included bathtubs, lion attacks, and Roman orgies. A number of his films featured scenes in two-color Technicolor. In 1923, DeMille released a modern melodrama The Ten Commandments which was a significant change from his previous stint of irreligious films. The film was produced on a large budget of $600,000, the most expensive production at Paramount. This concerned the executives at Paramount; however, the film turned out to be the studio’s highest-grossing film. It held the Paramount record for twenty-five years until DeMille broke the record again himself.

1924

In the early 1920s, scandal surrounded Paramount. Several Paramount contractees were accused of rape, murder, and drug addiction. Outcry intensified from religious groups and the media were appalled by immorality in the film industry on and off screen. A censorship board called the Hays Code was established. DeMille’s depiction of on screen immorality came under fire, likely due to the scandalous film The Affairs of Anatol. Furthermore, DeMille argued with Zukor over his extravagant and over-budget production costs. Consequently, DeMille left Paramount in 1924 despite having helped establish it. Instead, he joined the Producers Distributing Corporation. His first film from his new production company, DeMille Pictures Corporation, was The Road to Yesterday in 1925. He directed and produced four films on his own, working with Producers Distributing Corporation because he found front office supervision too restricting. Aside from The King of Kings (which was said to be DeMille’s favorite film), none of DeMille’s films away from Paramount were successful. The Kings of Kings established DeMille as “master of the grandiose and of biblical sagas”. The most successful Christian film of the silent era. DeMille calculated that the film had been viewed over 800 million times around the world. After the release of DeMille’s The Godless Girl, silent films in America became obsolete and DeMille was forced to shoot a shoddy final reel with the new sound production technique. Although this final reel looked so different from the previous eleven reels that it appeared to be from another movie, according to Simon Louvish, the film is one of DeMille’s strangest and most “DeMillean” film.

1928

When “talking pictures” were invented in 1928, Cecil B. DeMille made a successful transition, offering his own innovations to the painful process; he devised a microphone boom and a soundproof camera blimp. He also popularized the camera crane. His first three sound films were produced at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. These three films, Dynamite, Madame Satan, and his 1931 remake of The Squaw Man were both critically and financially unsuccessful. He had completely adapted to the production of sound film besides despite the film’s poor dialogue. After his contract ended at MGM, he left, but no production studios would hire him. He attempted to create a guild of a half a dozen directors with the same creative desires called the Director’s Guild. However, the idea failed due to lack of funding and commitment. Moreover, DeMille was audited by the Internal Revenue Service due to issues with his production company. This was, according to DeMille, the lowest point of his career. DeMille traveled abroad to find employment until he was offered a deal at Paramount.

Cecil B. DeMille was a conservative Republican activist. He became more conservative as he aged, until he became a “pillar of California’s political right-wing”. However, he lived two different lives. On the one hand, DeMille lived a life of strong Christian ethics, as exemplified through his wife and children. On the other hand, DeMille’s private life, which included mistresses and adultery, conflicted with the Episcopalian integrity he portrayed. Additionally, he frequently contradicted his staunchly conservative viewpoints. His film The Volga Boatman gave a sympathetic portrayal of the Russian Revolution and he was fascinated by a trip to the Soviet Union in the 1930s. More in line with his conservative views, he was known as anti-union and worked to prevent unionizing of film production studios. However, according to DeMille himself, he was not anti-union and belonged to a few unions himself. He said he was rather against union leaders such as Walter Reuther and Harry Bridges whom he compared to dictators. He supported Herbert Hoover and in 1928 made his largest campaign donation to Hoover. However, in a contradiction, DeMille liked Franklin D. Roosevelt, finding him charismatic, tenacious, and intelligent. He agreed with Roosevelt’s abhorrence of Prohibition. DeMille lent Roosevelt a car for his campaign for the 1932 United States presidential election and voted for him. However, he would never again vote for a Democratic candidate in a presidential election.

1932

In 1932, DeMille returned to Paramount at the request of Lasky, bringing with him his own production unit. His first film back at Paramount, The Sign of the Cross, was also his first success since leaving Paramount besides The King of Kings. DeMille’s return was approved by Zukor under the condition that DeMille not exceed his production budget of $650,000 for The Sign of the Cross. Produced in eight weeks without exceeding budget, the film was financially successful. The Sign of the Cross was the first film to integrate all cinematic techniques. The film was considered a “masterpiece” and surpassed the quality of other sound films of the time. DeMille followed this epic uncharacteristically with two dramas released in 1933 and 1934. This Day and Age and Four Frightened People were box office disappointments, though Four Frightened People received good reviews. DeMille would stick to his large-budget spectaculars for the rest of his career.

1939

In 1939, DeMille’s Union Pacific was successful through DeMille’s collaboration with the Union Pacific Railroad. The Union Pacific gave DeMille access to historical data, early period trains, and expert crews, adding to the authenticity of the film. During pre-production of Union Pacific, DeMille was dealing with his first serious health issue. In March 1938, He underwent a major emergency prostatectomy. He suffered from a post-surgery infection from which he nearly did not recover, citing streptomycin as his saving grace. The surgery caused him to suffer from sexual dysfunction for the rest of his life, according to some family members. Following his surgery and the success of Union Pacific, in 1940, DeMille first used three-strip Technicolor in North West Mounted Police. DeMille wanted to film in Canada; however, due to budget constraints, the film was instead shot in Oregon and Hollywood. Critics were impressed with the visuals but found the scripts dull, calling it DeMille’s “poorest Western”. Despite the criticism, it was Paramount’s highest-grossing film of the year. Audiences liked its highly saturated color, so DeMille made no further black-and-white features. DeMille was anti-communist and abandoned a project in 1940 to film Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls due to its communist themes despite the fact he had already paid $100,000 for the rights to the novel. He was so eager to produce the film, that he hadn’t yet read the novel. He claimed he abandoned the project in order to complete a different project, but in reality, it was to preserve his reputation and avoid appearing reactionary. While concurrently filmmaking, he served in World War II at the age of sixty as his neighborhood air-raid warden.

1942

In 1942, DeMille worked with Jeanie MacPherson and brother William deMille in order to produce a film called Queen of Queens which was intended to be about Mary, mother of Jesus. After reading the screenplay, Daniel A. Lord warned DeMille that Catholics would find the film too irreverent, while non-Catholics would have considered the film Catholic propaganda. Consequently, the film was never made. Jeanie MacPherson would work as a scriptwriter for many of DeMille’s films. In 1938, DeMille supervised the compilation of film Land of Liberty to represent the contribution of the American film industry to the 1939 New York World’s Fair. DeMille used clips from his own films in Land of Liberty. Though the film was not high-grossing, it was well-received and DeMille was asked to shorten its running time to allow for more showings per day. MGM distributed the film in 1941 and donated profits to World War II relief charities.

In 1942, DeMille released Paramount’s most successful film, Reap the Wild Wind. It was produced with a large budget and contained many special effects including an electronically operated giant squid. After working on Reap the Wild Wind, in 1944, he was the master of ceremonies at the massive rally organized by David O. Selznick in the Los Angeles Coliseum in support of the Dewey–Bricker ticket as well as Governor Earl Warren of California. DeMille’s subsequent film Unconquered (1947) had the longest running time (146 minutes), longest filming schedule (102 days) and largest budget of $5 million. The sets and effects were so realistic that 30 extras needed to be hospitalized due to a scene with fireballs and flaming arrows. It was commercially very successful.

1949

DeMille’s next film, Samson and Delilah in 1949, became Paramount’s highest-grossing film up to that time. A Biblical epic with sex, it was a characteristically DeMille film. Again, 1952’s The Greatest Show on Earth became Paramount’s highest-grossing film to that point. Furthermore, DeMille’s film won the Academy Award for Best Picture and the Academy Award for Best Story. The film began production in 1949, Ringling Brothers-Barnum and Bailey were paid $250,000 for use of the title and facilities. DeMille toured with the circus while helping write the script. Noisy and bright, it was not well-liked by critics, but was a favorite among audiences. DeMille signed a contract with Prentice Hall publishers in August 1953 to publish an autobiography. 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. Art Arthur also interviewed people for the autobiography. DeMille did not like the first draft of the biography, saying that he thought the person portrayed in the biography was an “SOB”; he said it made him sound too egotistical. Besides filmmaking and finishing his autobiography, DeMille was involved in other projects. In the early 1950s, DeMille was recruited by Allen Dulles and Frank Wisner to serve on the board of the anti-communist National Committee for a Free Europe, the public face of the organization that oversaw the Radio Free Europe service. In 1954, Secretary of the Air Force Harold E. Talbott asked DeMille for help in designing the cadet uniforms at the newly established United States Air Force Academy. DeMille’s designs, most notably his design of the distinctive cadet parade uniform, won praise from Air Force and Academy leadership, were ultimately adopted, and are still worn by cadets.

1950

DeMille received two Academy Awards: an Honorary Award for “37 years of brilliant showmanship” in 1950 and a Best Picture award in 1953 for The Greatest Show on Earth. DeMille received a Golden Globe Award for Best Director and was additionally nominated for the Best Director category at the 1953 Academy Awards for the same film. He was further nominated in the Best Picture category for The Ten Commandments at the 1957 Academy Awards. DeMille’s Union Pacific received a Palme d’Or in retrospect at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.

1952

In 1952, DeMille sought approval for a lavish remake of his 1923 silent film The Ten Commandments. He went before the Paramount board of directors, which was mostly Jewish-American. The members rejected his proposal, even though his last two films, Samson and Delilah and The Greatest Show on Earth, had been record-breaking hits. Adolph Zukor convinced the board to change their minds on the grounds of morality. DeMille did not have an exact budget proposal for the project, and it promised to be the most costly in U.S. film history. Still, the members unanimously approved it. The Ten Commandments, released in 1956, was DeMille’s final film. It was the longest (3 hours, 39 minutes) and most expensive ($13 million) film in Paramount history. Production of The Ten Commandments began in October 1954. The Exodus scene was filmed on-site in Egypt with the use of four Technicolor-VistaVision camera filming 12,000 people. They continued filming in 1955 in Paris and Hollywood on 30 different sound stages. They were even required to expand to RKO sound studios for filming. Post-production lasted a year and the film premiered in Salt Lake City. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, it grossed over $80 million, which surpassed the gross of The Greatest Show on Earth and every other film in history, except for Gone with the Wind. A unique practice at the time, DeMille offered ten percent of his profit to the crew.

1954

On November 7, 1954, while in Egypt filming the Exodus sequence for The Ten Commandments, DeMille (who was seventy-three) climbed a 107-foot (33 m) ladder to the top of the massive Per Rameses set and suffered a serious heart attack. Despite the urging of his associate producer, DeMille wanted to return to the set right away. DeMille developed a plan with his doctor to allow him to continue directing while reducing his physical stress. Although DeMille completed the film, his health was diminished by several more heart attacks. His daughter Cecilia took over as director as DeMille sat behind the camera with Loyal Griggs as the cinematographer. This film would be his last.

1956

DeMille was interested in art and his favorite artist was Gustave Doré; DeMille based some of his most well-known scenes on the work of Doré. DeMille was the first director to connect art to filmmaking; he created the title of “art director” on the film set. DeMille was also known for his use of special effects without the use of digital technology. Notably, DeMille had cinematographer John P. Fulton create the parting of the Red Sea scene in his 1956 film The Ten Commandments, which was one of the most expensive special effects in film history, and has been called by Steven Spielberg “the greatest special effect in film history”. The actual parting of the sea was created by releasing 360,000 gallons of water into a huge water tank split by a U-shaped trough, overlaying it with film of a giant waterfall that was built on the Paramount backlot, and playing the clip backwards.

1958

Due to his frequent heart attacks, DeMille asked his son-in-law, actor Anthony Quinn, to direct a remake of his 1938 film The Buccaneer. DeMille served as executive producer, overseeing producer Henry Wilcoxon. Despite a cast led by Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner, the 1958 film The Buccaneer was a disappointment. DeMille attended the Santa Barbara premiere of The Buccaneer in December 1958. DeMille was unable to attend the Los Angeles premiere of The Buccaneer. In the months before his death, DeMille was researching a film biography of Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Scout Movement. DeMille asked David Niven to star in the film, but it was never made. DeMille also was planning a film about the space race as well as another biblical epic about the Book of Revelation. DeMille’s autobiography was mostly completed by the time DeMille died and was published in November 1959.

Cecil B. DeMille received many awards and honors, especially later in his career. The American Academy of Dramatic Arts honored DeMille with an Alumni Achievement Award in 1958. In 1957, DeMille gave the commencement address for the graduation ceremony of Brigham Young University wherein he received an honorary Doctorate of Letter degree. Additionally, in 1958, he received an honorary Doctorate of Law degree from Temple University. From the film industry, DeMille received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award at the Academy Awards in 1953, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Directors Guild of America Award the same year. In the same ceremony, DeMille received a nomination from Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures for The Greatest Show on Earth. In 1952, DeMille was awarded the first Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes. An annual award, the Golden Globe’s Cecil B. DeMille Award recognizes lifetime achievement in the film industry. For his contribution to the motion picture and radio industry, DeMille has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The first, for radio contributions, is located at 6240 Hollywood Blvd. The second star is located at 1725 Vine Street.

1959

Cecil B. DeMille suffered a series of heart attacks from June 1958 to January 1959, and died on January 21, 1959, following an attack. DeMille’s funeral was held on January 23 at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church. He was entombed at the Hollywood Memorial Cemetery (now known as Hollywood Forever). After his death, notable news outlets such as The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and The Guardian honored DeMille as “pioneer of movies”, “the greatest creator and showman of our industry”, and “the founder of Hollywood”. DeMille left his multi-million dollar estate in Los Feliz, Los Angeles in Laughlin Park to his daughter Cecilia because his wife had dementia and was unable to care for an estate. She would die one year later. His personal will drew a line between Cecilia and his three adopted children, with Cecilia receiving a majority of DeMille’s inheritance and estate. The other three children were surprised by this, as DeMille did not treat the children differently in life. Cecilia lived in the house for many years but auctioned the house in the late 1980s.

1963

DeMille’s legacy is maintained by his granddaughter Cecilia DeMille Presley who serves as the president of the Cecil B. DeMille Foundation, which strives to support higher education, child welfare, and film in Southern California. In 1963, the Cecil B. DeMille Foundation donated the “Paradise” ranch to the Hathaway Foundation, which cares for emotionally disturbed and abused children. A large collection of DeMille’s materials including scripts, storyboards, and films resides at Brigham Young University in L. Tom Perry Special Collections.

1985

The original Lasky-DeMille Barn in which The Squaw Man was filmed was converted into a museum named the “Hollywood Heritage Museum”. It opened on December 13, 1985 and features some of DeMille’s personal artifacts. The Lasky-DeMille Barn was dedicated as a California historical landmark in a ceremony on December 27, 1956; DeMille was the keynote speaker. and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2014. The Dunes Center in Guadalupe, California contains an exhibition of artifacts uncovered in the desert near Guadalupe from DeMille’s set of his 1923 version of The Ten Commandments, known as the “Lost City of Cecil B. DeMille”. 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.

2012

Publicly Episcopalian, DeMille drew on his Christian and Jewish heritage to convey a message of tolerance. DeMille received more than a dozen awards from Jewish religious and cultural groups, including B’nai B’rith. However, not everyone received DeMille’s religious films favorably. DeMille was accused of antisemitism after the release of The King of Kings, and director John Ford despised DeMille for what he saw as “hollow” biblical epics meant to promote DeMille’s reputation during the politically turbulent 1950s. In response to the claims, DeMille donated some of the profits from The King of Kings to charity. In the 2012 Sight & Sound poll, both DeMille’s Samson and Delilah and 1923 version of The Ten Commandments received votes, but did not make the top 100 films. 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

2019

In summer 2019, The Friends of the Pompton Lakes Library hosted a Cecil B DeMille film festival to celebrate DeMille’s achievements and connection to Pompton Lakes. They screened four of his films at Christ Church, where DeMille and his family attended church when they lived there. Two schools have been named after him: Cecil B. DeMille Middle School, in Long Beach, California, which was closed and demolished in 2010 to make way for a new high school; and Cecil B. DeMille Elementary School in Midway City, California. The former film building at Chapman University in Orange, California, is named in honor of DeMille. During the Apollo 11 mission, Buzz Aldrin refers to himself in one instance as “Cecil B. DeAldrin”, as a humorous nod to DeMille. The title of the 2000 John Waters film Cecil B. Demented alludes to DeMille.

Upcoming Birthday

Currently, Cecil B. DeMille is 141 years, 0 months and 24 days old. Cecil B. DeMille will celebrate 142nd birthday on a Saturday 12th of August 2023.

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