Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil B. DeMille
"Give me any two pages of the Bible, and I'll give you a picture."
Cecil B. DeMille
Birth name:
Cecil Blount DeMille
Born:
12th August 1881, Ashfield, Massachusetts, USA
Died:
21st January 1959, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA
Years active:
1914 - 1958
Cecil Blount DeMille was one of Hollywood’s founding figures. His career began in the silent era and spanned five decades. In that time he directed over seventy features, working in a variety of genres, ranging from social dramas to Westerns and biblical epics. DeMille ranks among the most commercially successful producer-directors in the history of American cinema.
He was born on 12th August 1881 in Ashfield, Massachusetts, into a theatrical family. His father, Henry C. DeMille, a lay preacher and playwright, collaborated with the celebrated theatrical impresario David Belasco. His mother, Beatrice, was an actress who figured prominently in his son’s business affairs. Henry DeMille died when Cecil was just eleven years old. To support her family, Beatrice ran a girls’ finishing school and sent Cecil to Pennsylvania Military College.
After developing a keen interest in theatre, he studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, graduating in 1900. A decade working as an actor and later actor-manager in stock and touring theatre companies followed. While touring in Washington with the play Hearts Are Trumps, DeMille met the actress Constance Adams, whom he would marry on 16th August 1902. The Genius, DeMille’s debut effort as a playwright, premiered in 1906 but met with little success. The Warrens of Virginia, which he co-wrote with his brother William, fared better the following year.
In 1911, DeMille’s mother introduced him to Jesse Lasky, then a theatrical producer. Lasky hoped to engage the services of Cecil’s older brother, William, a promising playwright. The two men’s shared passion for the theatre saw them enter a partnership which resulted in an operetta called California. It was a hit, but DeMille’s desire to be successful in his own right resulted in a series of flops between 1911 and 1913.
In 1913, he thought of becoming a war correspondent in Mexico. Instead, he formed the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company with Lasky, glove salesman Samuel Goldfish (later Goldwyn), and attorney Arthur Friend. The new company’s first picture was The Squaw Man, which DeMille filmed in Hollywood, using a rented barn as a studio. Released in February 1914, it was the first feature film made in Hollywood and an enormous success.
Between 1914 and 1917, DeMille made thirty movies, rising to become one of the industry’s leading figures. In June 1916, the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company merged with W. W. Hodkinson’s Paramount Pictures. The merger gave the new organisation control of production, distribution, and exhibition. DeMille played a key part in shaping Paramount’s structure. He created positions such as studio story editor and art director. Larger budgets allowed DeMille to insist on higher production values for his films. During this period, he mixed social themes with melodrama and spectacle. His films would often combine titillation with an uplifting moral message and religious sentiment.
Cecil B. DeMille on set in 1922
After the war, DeMille’s films reflected the new social attitudes which abandoned morality for materialism and fast living. The “Roaring Twenties”. Audiences were growing more sophisticated and responded to smart movies that emphasised sex and modern women, such as DeMille’s Old Wives for New (1918), Don’t Change Your Husband (1919), Why Change Your Wife? (1920) and The Affairs of Anatol (1921).
Despite his success at the box office, DeMille frequently clashed with Paramount studio head Adolph Zukor. After a rancorous dispute over the production costs for The Ten Commandments (1923), DeMille left Paramount to form DeMille Pictures Corporation, distributing his pictures through Lasky’s Producers Distributing Corporation (PDC). Apart from The King of Kings (1927), his independent pictures were unsuccessful, and he signed a contract with MGM. However, the three films he made for them were unsuccessful, and the studio didn’t renew his contract.
DeMille suffered disastrous financial losses in the stock market crash. In 1932, with his career at an all-time low, he returned to Paramount. He part-financed The Sign of the Cross (1932), and Paramount rewarded him for its box-office success with a creative home for the rest of his career. The film reinforced his reputation for directing lavish religious spectacles, although two of his highest-grossing films of the 1930s were Westerns: The Plainsman (1936) and Union Pacific (1939). DeMille also elevated his public profile above his contemporaries by hosting the popular, long-running Lux Radio Theatre program. On set, he created the archetypal public image of a movie director by wearing jodhpurs and riding boots and wielding a megaphone.
DeMille’s success continued into the 1940s and ‘50s with more historical and religious movies such as Unconquered (1947), and Samson and Delilah (1949). His 1952 circus-set drama The Greatest Show on Earth won the Academy Award for Best Picture and earned DeMille an Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. His standing among the film-making community was damaged, however, by his vociferous support for the House Un-American Activities Committee during the height of the anti-communist witch-hunts of the 1950s.
DeMille’s last film was The Ten Commandments (1956), another religious epic - this time filmed in Technicolor and widescreen. It became one of the highest-grossing films of all time when adjusted for inflation and earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Director.
In November 1954, while filming The Ten Commandments, DeMille suffered a heart attack on set. DeMille insisted on continuing with the production, but suffered further heart attacks that left him in fragile health throughout the late 1950s. Despite this, he continued to plan new projects up until his death at his Los Feliz home on 21st January 1959.
Sources: Cecil B. DeMille: Empire of Dreams, Scott Eyman; Cecil B. DeMille and American Culture, Sumiko Higashi; Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood, Robert S. Birchard; The Autobiography of Cecil B. DeMille, Cecil B. DeMille; Cecil B. DeMille, Simon Louvish.
Cecil B. DeMille Filmography
1914 The Squaw Man 74 min Dustin Farnum, Winifred Kingston, Red Wing, Monroe Salisbury Co-dir. Oscar Apfel. First feature film shot in Hollywood. DeMille's debut; Brewster's Millions ~60 min Edward Abeles, Joseph Singleton, Sydney Deane Co-dir. Oscar Apfel. Based on George Barr McCutcheon's novel; The Master Mind ~50 min Edmund Breese, Fred Montague, Jane Darwell Co-dir. Oscar Apfel; The Only Son ~45 min Thomas Meighan, Truly Shattuck, Mabel Van Buren Co-dir. Oscar Apfel; The Man on the Box ~45 min Victor Moore, Lolita Robertson, Sydney Deane Co-dir. Oscar Apfel; The Call of the North ~55 min Robert Edeson, Theodore Roberts, Winifred Kingston Co-dir. Oscar Apfel. Preserved at George Eastman House; The Virginian 55 min Dustin Farnum, Jack W. Johnston, Sydney Deane First film credited solely to DeMille; What's His Name 50 min Max Figman, Lolita Robertson, Sydney Deane Preserved at George Eastman House; The Man from Home ~55 min Charles Richman, Theodore Roberts, Fred Montague Preserved at Library of Congress; Rose of the Rancho 50 min Bessie Barriscale, Jane Darwell, Dick La Reno Adapted from Belasco play. Preserved at GEH & LoC; The Ghost Breaker 60 min H.B. Warner, Rita Stanwood, Theodore Roberts Co-dir. Oscar Apfel.
1915 Carmen 59 min Geraldine Farrar, Wallace Reid, Pedro de Cordoba DeMille's operatic spectacle. Preserved at GEH, MoMA, BFI; The Girl of the Golden West 45 min Mabel Van Buren, Theodore Roberts, House Peters Adapted from Belasco play. Preserved at GEH & BFI; After Five ~45 min Geraldine Farrar, Richard Carlyle, Doris Tennant Lost film; The Warrens of Virginia 50 min Blanche Sweet, James Neill, Page Peters First use of 'motivated lighting'. Preserved at GEH; The Unafraid 40 min Rita Jolivet, House Peters, Page Peters Preserved at George Eastman House; The Captive 50 min Blanche Sweet, House Peters, Gerald Ward Thought lost until 1970; now at Library of Congress; The Wild Goose Chase ~40 min Ina Claire, Tom Forman, Theodore Roberts Lost film; The Arab 50 min Edgar Selwyn, Horace B. Carpenter, Milton Brown Lost film; Chimmie Fadden 40 min Victor Moore, Raymond Hatton, Mrs. Lewis McCord Preserved at Cinemateket Stockholm; Kindling ~50 min Charlotte Walker, Thomas Meighan, Harvey Clark Lost film. Social drama; Chimmie Fadden Out West 50 min Victor Moore, Camille Astor, Raymond Hatton Sequel. Preserved at George Eastman House; The Cheat 59 min Fannie Ward, Sessue Hayakawa, Jack Dean DeMille's masterwork. National Film Registry. Critical sensation;
1916 Temptation 60 min Geraldine Farrar, Theodore Roberts, Pedro de Cordoba Lost film. Follow-up to Carmen;1916 The Golden Chance 74 min Cleo Ridgely, Wallace Reid, Horace B. Carpenter Preserved at George Eastman House; The Trail of the Lonesome Pine ~60 min Charlotte Walker, Thomas Meighan, Theodore Roberts Preserved at LoC & GEH; The Heart of Nora Flynn ~55 min Marie Doro, Elliott Dexter, Ernest Joy Preserved at George Eastman House; Maria Rosa ~55 min Geraldine Farrar, Wallace Reid, Pedro de Cordoba Preserved at GEH & BFI; The Dream Girl ~55 min Mae Murray, Theodore Roberts, James Neill Lost film; Joan the Woman 138 min Geraldine Farrar, Wallace Reid, Theodore Roberts Epic biographical drama. Preserved at CNC, GEH, BFI.