His silent films included social dramas, comedies, Westerns, farces, morality plays, and historical pageants. Character actor H. B. Warner was fifty, but looked Thirty was cast as Christ, and gives a gently . [321]:2123. He is acknowledged as a founding father of the American cinema and the most commercially successful producer-director in film history. The Squaw Man (1914), co-directed by Oscar Apfel, was a sensation and it established the Lasky Company. [170] DeMille's autobiography was mostly completed by the time DeMille died and was published in November 1959. Moreover, DeMille was audited by the Internal Revenue Service due to issues with his production company. Story 2018 . [73] There were problems; however, with the perforation of the film stock and it was discovered the DeMille had brought a cheap British film perforator which had punched in sixty-five holes per foot instead of the industry-standard of sixty-four. [18] The family lived in Washington, North Carolina,[19] until Henry built a three-story Victorian-style house for his family in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey; they named this estate "Pamlico". (TV Special) Self - Cecil B. DeMille Award Recipient 1963-1964 Password (TV Series) Self - Celebrity Contestant / Self - James Stewart vs . Beatrice was intelligent, educated, forthright, and strong-willed. Martin Scorsese cited Unconquered, Samson and Delilah, and The Greatest Show on Earth as DeMille films that have imparted lasting memories on him. . While visually appealing, this made the films appear more old-fashioned. [171], Cecil B. DeMille suffered a series of heart attacks from June 1958 to January 1959,[168] and died on January 21, 1959, following an attack. DeMille instructed the guilty man to leave town and would never reveal his name. Sitting in an IMAX [173] After his death, notable news outlets such as The New York Times, the 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". 10 June 2021. [5] DeMille was named after his grandmothers Cecelia Wolff and Margarete Blount. From the archive, 22 January 1959: Pioneering film maker Cecil B. deMille dies Even the severest critics of his films had to concede that he was a great showman Cecil B. deMille (1881-1959). [188][189] DeMille recalled that one of the most influential plays he saw was Hamlet, directed by Sothern. [71] 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. Additionally, DeMille's epics such as The Crusades influenced Sergei Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky. 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. Paramount Pictures 1956 release of the Academy Award-winning, Cecil B. DeMille-directed epic and international success, "The Ten Commandments," is more than likely the most famous religious-drama of all time. The United States Supreme Court declined to review his case. [13] She had emigrated from England with her parents in 1871 when she was 18; the newly arrived family settled in Brooklyn, New York, where they maintained a middle-class, English-speaking household. [218][219] DeMille cast some of his performers repeatedly, including: Henry Wilcoxon,[220] Julia Faye, Joseph Schildkraut,[221] Ian Keith,[222] Charles Bickford,[223] Theodore Roberts, Akim Tamiroff[224] and William Boyd. [271] DeMille was immortalized in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard when Gloria Swanson spoke the line: "All right, Mr. DeMille. [80] The first few years of the Lasky Company were spent in making films nonstop, literally writing the language of film. Cecil Blount DeMille ( August 12, 1881 - January 21, 1959) was an American filmmaker. [65] Already $15,000 in debt to Royle for the screenplay of The Squaw Man, Lasky's relatives bought the $5,000 stock to save the Lasky Company from bankruptcy. [138] Despite the criticism, it was Paramount's highest-grossing film of the year. Cause of Death: Heart failure. [26] 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. Next, he would work with writers to develop the story that he was envisioning. [28] On Henry DeMille's deathbed, he told his wife that he did not want his sons to become playwrights. 1956 theater brochure [276] Famed director Steven Spielberg stated that DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth was one of the films that influenced him to become a filmmaker. [121], In 1932, DeMille returned to Paramount at the request of Lasky, bringing with him his own production unit. [61], The Squaw Man was a success, which led to the eventual founding of Paramount Pictures and Hollywood becoming the "film capital of the world". [256] Meanwhile, Sumiko Higashi sees DeMille as "not only a figure who was shaped and influenced by the forces of his era but as a filmmaker who left his own signature on the culture industry. This concerned the executives at Paramount; however, the film turned out to be the studio's highest-grossing film. 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. [303] In 1957, DeMille gave the commencement address for the graduation ceremony of Brigham Young University wherein he received an honorary Doctorate of Letter degree. Despite his loss, DeMille continued to lobby for the TaftHartley Act, which passed. He is particularly remembered for his 1956 film "The Ten Commandments", but made over 70 films throughout his long career. [72] DeMille adapted Belasco's dramatic lighting techniques to film technology, mimicking moonlight with U.S. cinema's first attempts at "motivated lighting" in The Warrens of Virginia. Noisy and bright, it was not well-liked by critics, but was a favorite among audiences. [130] He resigned from the Lux Radio Show because he refused to pay a dollar to the American Federation of Radio Artists (AFRA) because he did not believe that any organization had the right to "levy a compulsory assessment upon any member. Oscars 1950 - Honorary Award. "[35] DeMille had more violent sexual preferences and fetishes than his wife. Age. [84] 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. Credits. [88] On July 19, 1916, the Jesse Lasky Feature Play Company merged with Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Company, becoming Famous Players-Lasky. [116], 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. It was produced with a large budget and contained many special effects including an electronically operated giant squid. Further illustrated by his home life, DeMille required formality and politeness at home. . The Sign of the Cross (1932) is said to be the first sound film to integrate all aspects of cinematic technique. Pictorials. [109] Considered at the time to be the most successful Christian film of the silent era, DeMille calculated that it had been viewed over 800 million times around the world. Between 1914 and 1956, he made seventy feature films; all but seven were profitable. Cecil B. DeMille, of course, is the legendary filmmaker, director of The Ten Commandments, The King of Kings, Cleopatra, Samson & Delilah, The Greatest Show on Earth, and many more excellent and timeless films. He initially sought out William deMille. The Ten Commandments gave the director a chance to play God, to film miracles. [21] DeMille's sister Agnes was born on April 23, 1891; his mother nearly did not survive the birth. d. 21 st January 1959, Hollywood, California, USA. [159] The Ten Commandments, released in 1956, was DeMille's final film. DeMille plays himself in the film. He was granted an honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II in 1974. With his editor, Anne Bauchens, DeMille used editing techniques to allow the visual images to bring the plot to climax rather than dialogue. He graduated in 1900, and for graduation, his performance was the play The Arcady Trail. Any problems on the set were often fixed by writers in the office rather than on the set. Carl Laemmle anniversary 1931.JPG 1,473 1,161; 359 KB. Beatrice became a play broker and author's agent, influencing DeMille's early life and career. Age at Death: 77. [40], His brother William was establishing himself as a playwright and sometimes invited him to collaborate. [84] Throughout his career, DeMille would frequently remake his own films. DeMille himself directed twenty films by 1915. Barbara Stanwyck. [107] Aside from The King of Kings, none of DeMille's films away from Paramount were successful. [110] 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. [134] William Keighley was his replacement. Eventually, he became manager of the agency and later, a junior partner with his mother. He began his career with reserved yet brilliant melodramas; from there, his style developed into marital comedies with outrageously melodramatic plots. [28] This was the first of few film collaborations with his brother William. [274] DeMille has influenced the careers of many modern directors. Broadway Actor. (He would later cast her in The Ten Commandments.) [81] The most successful films during the beginning of the Lasky Company were Brewster's Millions (co-directed by DeMille), Rose of the Rancho, and The Ghost Breaker. [263] Joseph Henabery recalled that DeMille looked like "a king on a throne surrounded by his court" while directing films on a camera platform. As DeMille continued to rely on Groesbeck, the nervous energy of his early films transformed into more steady compositions of his later films. Broadway Actor. Cecil Blount DeMille[note 1] 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. Belasco was known for adding realistic elements in his plays such as real flowers, food, and aromas that could transport his audiences into the scenes. [130] From 1936 to 1945, he produced, hosted, and directed all shows with the occasional exception of a guest director. Cecil B. DeMille was born on August 12, 1881 in Ashfield, Massachusetts, U.S., United States, is Film Director, Producer. [157] Adolph Zukor convinced the board to change their minds on the grounds of morality. DeMille liked to sail and dive; he had several boats throughout his lifetime. retrieved. Consequently, his mother hired him for her agency The DeMille Play Company and taught him how to be an agent and a playwright. [201], DeMille experimented in his early films with photographic light and shade which created dramatic shadows instead of glare. [90], 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. [22] Agnes would die on February 11, 1894, at the age of three from spinal meningitis. 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. DeMille used clips from his own films in Land of Liberty. [163], On November 7, 1954, while in Egypt filming the Exodus sequence for The Ten Commandments, DeMille (who was seventy-three) climbed a 107-foot (33m) ladder to the top of the massive Per Rameses set and suffered a serious heart attack. DeMille toured with the circus while helping write the script. A lasting memory for DeMille was a lunch with his father and actor Edwin Booth. The American Academy of Dramatic Arts honored DeMille with an Alumni Achievement Award in 1958. [62] When William found out that DeMille had begun working in the motion picture industry, he wrote DeMille a letter, disappointed that he was willing "to throw away [his] future" when he was "born and raised in the finest traditions of the theater". [132], DeMille sued the union for reinstatement but lost. For More Information . 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). 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. In his first instance, in 1917, he remade The Squaw Man (1918), only waiting four years from the 1914 original. [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. [168] DeMille was unable to attend the Los Angeles premiere of The Buccaneer. [61] Sometimes, he directed scenes for other directors at the Feature Play Company in order to release films on time. [212] Paulette Goddard's refusal to risk personal injury in a scene involving fire in Unconquered cost her DeMille's favor and a role in The Greatest Show on Earth. Media in category "Cecil B. DeMille" The following 53 files are in this category, out of 53 total. Cecil Blount DeMille was born in Ashfield, Massachusetts, while his parents were vacationing there, and grew up in Washington, North Carolina. The school closed, and Beatrice filed for bankruptcy. 77. Cecil B. DeMille Net Worth: Cecil B. DeMille was an American film director and producer who had a net worth equal to $50 million at the time of his death after adjusting for . [138] Critics were impressed with the visuals but found the scripts dull, calling it DeMille's "poorest Western". Famous Players-Lasky donated the films. [148] Again, 1952's The Greatest Show on Earth became Paramount's highest-grossing film to that point. [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. Constance Adams DeMille (April 27, 1873 July 17, 1960) actress and wife of filmmaker Cecil Blount DeMille. [247] Adjusted for inflation, DeMille's remake of The Ten Commandments is the eighth highest-grossing film in the world. [132] [note 7], In 1939, DeMille's Union Pacific was successful through DeMille's collaboration with the Union Pacific Railroad. Among his best-known films are The Ten Commandments (1956), Cleopatra (1934), and The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. [84] While on a European vacation in 1921, DeMille contracted rheumatic fever in Paris. DeMille's early silent comedies influenced the comedies of Ernst Lubitsch and Charlie Chaplin's A Woman of Paris. Cecil B. DeMille was a master of spectacle. [213] DeMille did receive help in his films, notably from Alvin Wyckoff who shot forty-three of DeMille's films;[80] brother William deMille who would occasionally serve as his screenwriter;[82] and Jeanie Macpherson, who served as DeMille's exclusive screenwriter for fifteen years;[214] and Eddie Salven, DeMille's favorite assistant director. Date of Death: January 21, 1959. His films were distinguished by their epic scale and by his cinematic showmanship. vigilantes and fulminating fanatics suffering flock shock and who wanted to shut down 1920s Hollywood because of the cause clbre scandals . 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. However much I may dislike some of his pictures, it would be very silly of me, as a producer of commercial motion pictures, to demean for an instant his unparalleled skill as a maker of mass entertainment. DeMille told the actor that he was "one hundred percent yellow". [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. On the day of DeMille's death, President McKay sent a telegram to the DeMille family stating that DeMille "merits the welcome, 'well done that good and faithful servant; enter thou into the rest prepared for the just.' . Cause of Death: Heart failure due to a series of heart attacks. He had completely adapted to the production of sound film despite the film's poor dialogue. "A dreadful showoff. [30] DeMille attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (tuition-free due to his father's service to the Academy). . [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. His first biblical epic, The Ten Commandments (1923), was both a critical and commercial success; it held the Paramount revenue record for twenty-five years. Married Life. [155], We have just lived through a war where our people were systematically executed. Robin Williams, 2005. Pioneering film director. I'm ready for my close-up." But he put on pictures that made a fortune. His films were distinguished by their epic . He said he was rather against union leaders such as Walter Reuther and Harry Bridges whom he compared to dictators. Hollywood, California: Paramount Pictures.2011, Last edited on 25 February 2023, at 18:28, Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Drama, eighth-highest-grossing film of all time, adjusted for inflation, "Back in the Day - Sept. 18, 1991: De Mille's Pompton Lakes roots recalled", "Anthony Quinn: Colourful Hollywood star who built a career playing ethnic heroes and villains", "Guide to the Richard DeMille Collection", "Cecil DeMille, 77, Pioneer of Movies, Dead in Hollywood", "How a Hollywood Director Almost Launched L.A.'s First Commercial Airline", "Register of the Cecil B. DeMille Archives, 1863-1983", "Financing Hollywood through the Great Depression", "Angelina Jolie Buys Historic Cecil B. DeMille Estate for $24.5 Million", "Sixty years later, The Ten Commandments remains one of the most popular biblical films ever made", "Angelina Jolie Buys Cecil B. DeMille's Estate at Record-Shattering Price", "Christie's East to Auction DeMille Possessions", "New Testament to Genius: Turner's "Cecil B. DeMille", "Cecil B. DeMille's "Samson and Delilah" Brings the World's Greatest Love Story to the Screen", "Hollywood Legend Claudette Colbert Dies", "Charlton Heston: as you won't remember him", "The Deep Focus Typecasting of Joseph Schildkraut as Judas Figure in Four DeMille Films", "A Brief History of Movie Special Effects", "All-Time Box-Office Hits By Decade and Year", "Ridley Scott: from Alien to Exodus, a Cecil B. DeMille for the digital age", "Samson as a Moses-Figure in Cecil B. DeMille's "Samson and Delilah" (1949)", "BFI Sight & Sound Top Ten Poll 2002 How the directors and critics voted", "Hollywood Flashback: Cecil B. DeMille Accepted the Golden Globe Named for Him in 1952", "Reel dictators: why despots love directors", "Disp L.A. Case #45: Cecil B. DeMille's Riding Crop", "DeMille's Re-Released 'Commandments'Better Than Ever", "Cecil B. DeMille the greatest filmmaking showman rediscovered!
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