DeMille was one of the 36 co-founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).
President of DeMille Pictures Corporation, formed in 1925.
Remade four of his own films including “The Ten Commandments” (1923 & 1956)
According to DeMille he fell in love with film after watching “The Great Train Robbery” in Manhattan with Jesse L. Lasky. Several days later they lunched with Sam Goldfish (later to change his name to Samuel Goldwyn) and attorney Arthur Friend and formed the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company, which later grew to be Paramount Pictures.
The Egyptian set built in the sand dunes of Guadalupe in California for “The Ten Commandments” (1923) - seen in the prologue - was an enormous construction and was actually considerably larger than the Babylon sets in D.W. Griffith's “Intolerance”, to which they are often compared.
“The Ten Commandments” became the highest-grossing film of 1923. The film's box-office returns held the Paramount revenue record for 25 years until it was broken by other DeMille films. The film competed at the box office with Willam Fox’s “The Shepherd King” and won out overall.
Eight of his films were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography: “The Sign of the Cross”, “Cleopatra”, “The Crusades”, “The Buccaneer”, “North West Mounted Police”, “Reap the Wild Wind”, “Samson and Delilah”, and “The Ten Commandments”. Only “Cleopatra” won.
His last three films, “Samson and Delilah”, “The Greatest Show on Earth”, and “The Ten Commandments”, were all nominated for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design. Only “Samson and Delilah” won.
DeMille was notable for his courage and athleticism and despised men unwilling to perform dangerous stunts or who had phobias. He criticized Victor Mature on the set of “Samson and Delilah”, calling him "100 percent yellow".
After “The Ten Commandments” (1956), his remake of his earlier “The Ten Commandments” (1923), DeMille began work on a project about Lord Robert Baden-Powell and the Boy Scout movement, but eventually abandoned it in favor of “The Buccaneer”.
Charlton Heston, star of DeMille's “The Greatest Show on Earth” and “The Ten Commandments” (1956) wrote in his autobiography that "I should have thanked him for my career".
According to Charlton Heston, DeMille was known to throw anyone off the set that he caught speaking during a take. One day, he came back to his office early than expected and his secretary asked, "What happened, Mister DeMille? Did you talk during a take?".
Of all his American history epics, his favorite was “Union Pacific”.
Stuntman Jack Montgomery, who played a Christian cavalryman in DeMille's “The Crusades”, recalled in an interview the tension that existed between DeMille and the dozens of stuntmen hired to do the battle scenes. They resented what they saw as DeMille's cavalier attitude about safety, especially as several stuntmen had been injured, and several horses had been killed, because of what they perceived to be DeMille's indifference. At one point, DeMille was standing on the parapets of the castle, shouting through his megaphone at the "combatants" gathered below. One of them, who had been hired for his expertise at archery, finally tired of DeMille's screaming at them, notched an arrow into his bow and fired it at DeMille's megaphone, the arrow embedding itself into the device just inches from DeMille's head. He quickly left the set and didn't come back that day. He came back the next day, but for the rest of the picture, DeMille never shouted at the stuntmen again.
Although married to wife Constance for fifty-six years, DeMille had long-term affairs with two other women: Jeanie Macpherson and Julia Faye, occasionally entertaining both women simultaneously on his yacht or his ranch. His wife knew of the affairs, but preferred to live with their children in the main house.
Julia Faye, who plays the Pharaoh's wife in the 1923 version of “The Ten Commandments”, also played Elisheba, Aaron's wife, in the 1956 remake of “The Ten Commandment”.
Only eldest daughter Cecilia de Mille was the DeMilles' natural child, daughter Katherine DeMille and sons John and Richard de Mille being adopted later.
Was the original host of the popular "Lux Radio Theater", which presented one-hour radio adaptations of popular movies, often with the original stars, always with many of the biggest names in Hollywood. DeMille served as host/director of the series from its debut in 1936 until 1944, when a politically-oriented dispute with the American Federation of Radio Artists forced his suspension, and ultimate resignation, from the program. William Keighley succeeded him for the remainder of the program's run.
DeMille is the subject of many Hollywood legends. According to one famous story, DeMille once directed a film that required a huge, expensive battle scene. Filming on location in a California valley, the director set up multiple cameras to capture the action from every angle. It was a sequence that could only be done once. When DeMille shouted "Action!", thousands of extras playing soldiers stormed across the field, firing their guns. Riders on horseback galloped over the hills. Cannons fired, pyrotechnic explosives were blown up, and battle towers loaded with soldiers came toppling down. The whole sequence went off perfectly. At the end of the scene, DeMille shouted "Cut!". He was then informed, to his horror, that three of the four cameras recording the battle sequence had failed. In Camera #1, the film had broken. Camera #2 had missed shooting the sequence when a dirt clod was kicked into the lens by a horse's hoof. Camera #3 had been destroyed when a battle tower had fallen on it. DeMille was at his wit's end when he suddenly remembered that he still had Camera #4, which he had had placed along with a cameraman on a nearby hill to get a long shot of the battle sequence. DeMille grabbed his megaphone and called up to the cameraman, "Did you get all that?". The cameraman on the hill waved and shouted back, "Ready when you are, C.B.!".
In another famous story, DeMille was on a movie set one day, about to film an important scene. He was giving a set of complicated instructions to a huge crowd of extras, when he suddenly noticed one female extra talking to another. Enraged, DeMille shouted at the extra, "Will you kindly tell everyone here what you are talking about that is so important?". The extra replied, "I was just saying to my friend, 'I wonder when that bald-headed son-of-a-bitch is going to call lunch.'" DeMille glared at the extra for a moment, then shouted, "Lunch!".
For his silent movie 1923 version of “The Ten Commandments” the effect of the parting of the Red Sea was created by placing two blocks of blue gelatin side-by-side, heating them until they melted...then running the footage in reverse.
Beginning in 1940 and continuing on to the end of his career, all of the films that he produced and directed were made in color and narrated by him.
Directed three films nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture: “Cleopatra”, “The Greatest Show on Earth”, and “The Ten Commandments”. “The Greatest Show on Earth” won.
Cecil B. De Mille and Alfred Hitchcock were the only directors whose names appeared on the marquee of the theater where his films played.
Directed four films based on stories from both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible: “The Ten Commandments” (1923), “The King of Kings”, “Samson and Delilah”, and “The Ten Commandments” (1956). The first two are silent films with sequences in two-strip Technicolor, while the other two are sound films in full Technicolor.
He planned four biblical epics which were never made: "The Deluge" (1927), about Noah's ark; "Esther" (1939), about the beautiful Jewish queen of Persia; "The Queen of Queens" (1940), about Mary, the mother of Jesus; and "Thou Art the Man" (1945), about David, king of Israel.
By 1956, it was estimated that DeMille's 69 films (those that preceded "The Ten Commandments") had earned $630 million at the box office and had been seen by 3.5 billion people.
At his death, DeMille was in the process of producing/directing an epic film about the creation of the Boy Scouts, to star James Stewart. His estate papers include a script and extensive research material.
Before casting of Victor Mature as the male lead of “Samson and Delilah”, DeMille considered using a then unknown bodybuilder named Steve Reeves as Samson, after his original choice, Burt Lancaster, declined due to a bad back. DeMille liked Reeves and thought he was perfect for the part, but a clash between Reeves and the studio over his physique killed that possibility. Almost a decade later, Reeves found fame and stardom appearing in Hercules and many other Italian films.
To promote “The Ten Commandments” (1956), DeMille had stone plaques of the commandments posted at government buildings across the country. Many of them are still standing to this day, and some are now the subjects of First Amendment lawsuits.
A conservative Republican, DeMille was an active supporter of the practice of blacklisting real or alleged Communists, progressives and other "subversives", in 1952, he attempted to get Joseph L. Mankiewicz removed as President of the Directors Guild because he would not endorse the DeMille-inspired loyalty oath. Directors George Stevens and John Ford managed to block DeMille's efforts.
The enormous sets of ancient Egypt for “The Ten Commandments” (1923) have become a Hollywood legend in themselves. The "City of the Pharaohs" was constructed of wood and plaster in the Guadalupe Dunes, an 18-mile stretch of coastal sand 170 miles north of L.A. When shooting wrapped, DeMille simply had the massive Egyptian city sets bulldozed, and buried in a huge pit beneath the sand, where they remain to this day. For years, the legendary "Lost City of DeMille" was spoken of by locals in Guadalupe who had worked on the film set. In 1983, documentary filmmaker Peter Brosnan located the remains of the DeMille sets, still buried beneath the dunes. The site is now recognized as an official archaeological site by the state of California, and it is against the law to remove artifacts from the site. Brosnan has been trying for many years to raise money from the Hollywood studios to excavate the site, but so far has been unable to do so.
DeMille died the same day as Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer and interred at Hollywood Memorial Cemetery (now called Hollywood Forever Cemetery) in Los Angeles, California. He was buried alongside his brother William C. de Mille at Hollywood Forever Cemetary. Among the pallbearers were Adolph Zukor, Samuel Goldwyn and Henry Wilcoxon.
He has directed two films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: “The Cheat” and “The Ten Commandments” (1956). He has also appeared in one film that is in the registry: Billy Wilder’s “Sunset Blvd.”.
The lifetime achievement award from the Hollywood Foreign Press (Golden Globe Awards) is named after him.
He was awarded 2 Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Motion Pictures at 1725 Vine Street; and for Radio at 6240 Vine Street in Hollywood, California.
Trivia items from IMDB
Listen to my fascinating conversation with filmmaker Peter Brosnan about his incredible documentary “The Lost City of Cecil B DeMille” by clicking on the links below. Enjoy!
Episode 39 - HERE
Episode 40 - HERE
