Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil Blount DeMille, often known in popular culture as Mr. DeMille, was an American filmmaker and actor. Between 1914 and 1958, he made 70 features, both silent and sound films. He is acknowledged as a founding father of American cinema and the most commercially successful producer-director in film history, with many films dominating the box office three or four at a time. His films were distinguished by their epic scale and by his cinematic showmanship. His silent films included social dramas, comedies, Westerns, farces, morality plays, and historical pageants.
Born in Ashfield, Massachusetts and raised in New York City, DeMille began his career as a stage actor in 1900. He later began to write and direct stage plays, a few with his older brother William de Mille, and some with Jesse L. Lasky, who was then a vaudeville producer. DeMille's first film, The Squaw Man, was the first full-length feature film shot in Hollywood. Its interracial love story was commercially successful, and the film marked Hollywood as the new home of the U.S. film industry. Based on continued film successes, DeMille founded Famous Players Lasky which was later reverse merged into Paramount Pictures with Lasky and Adolph Zukor. His first biblical epic, The Ten Commandments, was both a critical and commercial success; it held the Paramount revenue record for 25 years.
DeMille directed The King of Kings, a biography of Jesus, which gained approval for its sensitivity and reached more than 800 million viewers. The Sign of the Cross is said to be the first sound film to integrate all aspects of cinematic technique. Cleopatra was his first film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. After more than 30 years in film production, DeMille reached a pinnacle in his career with Samson and Delilah, a biblical epic that became the highest-grossing film of 1950. Along with biblical and historical narratives, he also directed films oriented toward "neo-naturalism", which focused on portraying the laws of man fighting the forces of nature.
DeMille received his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director for his circus drama The Greatest Show on Earth, which won both the Academy Award for Best Picture and the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture — Drama. His 1956 remake of The Ten Commandments became his final and best-known film; also a Best Picture Academy Award nominee, it is the eighth-highest-grossing film of all time, adjusted for inflation. In addition to his Best Picture Awards, DeMille received an Academy Honorary Award for his film contributions, the Palme d'Or for Union Pacific, a DGA Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. He was the first recipient of the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award, which was named in his honor. DeMille's reputation had a renaissance in the 2010s, and his work has influenced numerous other films and directors.
Biography
1881–1899: early years
Cecil Blount DeMille was of paternal Dutch ancestry. His surname was spelled de Mil before his grandfather William added an "le" for "visual symmetry".As an adult, Cecil De Mille adopted the spelling DeMille because he believed it would look better on a marquee, but continued to use de Mille in private life. The family name de Mille was used by his children Cecilia, John, Richard, and Katherine. Cecil's brother, William, and his daughters, Margaret and Agnes, as well as DeMille's granddaughter, Cecilia de Mille Presley, also used the de Mille spelling.
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 the newborn DeMille to their flat in New York. DeMille was named after his grandmothers Cecilia Wolff and Margarete Blount. He was the second of three children of Henry Churchill de Mille and his wife, Matilda Beatrice deMille, known as Beatrice. His older brother, William C. deMille, was born on July 25, 1878.
Henry de Mille, whose ancestors were of English and Dutch-Belgian descent, was a North Carolina-born dramatist, actor, and lay reader in the Episcopal Church. In New York, Henry also taught English at Columbia College. 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. Henry de Mille frequently collaborated with David Belasco in playwriting; their best-known collaborations included "The Wife", "Lord Chumley", "The Charity Ball", and "Men and Women".
Cecil B. DeMille's mother, Beatrice, a literary agent and scriptwriter, was the daughter of German Jews. 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.
DeMille's parents met as members of a music and literary society in New York. Henry was a tall, red-headed student. Beatrice was intelligent, educated, forthright, and strong-willed. They married on July 1, 1876, despite Beatrice's parents' objections because of the young couple's differing religions; Beatrice converted to Episcopalianism.
DeMille was a brave and confident child. He gained his love of theater while watching his father and Belasco rehearse their plays. A lasting memory for DeMille was a lunch with his father and actor Edwin Booth. As a child, DeMille created an alter ego, Champion Driver, a Robin Hood-like character, evidence of his creativity and imagination.
His father and his family had 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 died on February 11, 1894, from spinal meningitis.
DeMille's parents operated a private school in Pompton Lakes 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.
On January 8, 1893, at age 40, Henry de Mille died suddenly from typhoid fever, leaving Beatrice with three children. To provide for her family, she opened the Henry C. de Mille 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 themselves, their home, and their country. Beatrice had "enthusiastically supported" Henry's theatrical aspirations. She later became the second female play broker on Broadway. On Henry's deathbed, he told his wife that he did not want his sons to become playwrights. DeMille's mother sent him to Pennsylvania Military College in Chester, Pennsylvania, at age 15. He fled the school to join the Spanish–American War, but failed to meet the age requirement. At the military college, even though his grades were average, he reportedly excelled in personal conduct.
DeMille attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He graduated in 1900, and for graduation, his performance was the play The Arcady Trail. In the audience was Charles Frohman, who cast DeMille in his play Hearts are Trumps, DeMille's Broadway debut.
DeMille was an active Freemason and member of Prince of Orange Lodge #16 in New York City.
1900–1912: theater
Charles Frohman, Constance Adams, and David Belasco
Cecil B. DeMille began his career as an actor on stage in 1900 in the theatrical company of Charles Frohman. He debuted 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 age 21, he married Constance Adams on August 16, 1902, at Adams's father's home in East Orange, New Jersey. The wedding party was small. Beatrice DeMille's family did not attend. Simon Louvish suggests that this was to conceal DeMille's partial Jewish heritage. Adams was 29 years old at the time of the marriage. They had met in a theater in Washington D.C. while they were both acting in Hearts Are Trumps.They were sexually incompatible; according to DeMille, Adams was too "pure" to "feel such violent and evil passions" as he. DeMille had more violent sexual preferences and fetishes than his wife. Adams allowed DeMille to have several long-term mistresses during their marriage as an outlet while maintaining an appearance of a faithful marriage. One of DeMille's affairs was with his screenwriter Jeanie MacPherson. Despite his reputation for extramarital affairs, DeMille did not like to have affairs with his stars, as he believed it would cause him to lose control as a director. He once said he maintained his self-control when Gloria Swanson sat on his lap, and refused to touch her.
In 1902, he played a small part in Hamlet. Publicists wrote that he became an actor in order to learn how to direct and produce, but DeMille admitted that he became an actor in order to pay the bills. From 1904 to 1905, he attempted to make a living as a stock theater actor with his wife, Constance. DeMille made a 1905 reprise in Hamlet as Osric. In the summer of 1905, DeMille joined the stock cast at the Elitch Theatre in Denver, Colorado. He appeared in 11 of the 15 plays presented that season, all in minor roles. Maude Fealy was the featured actress in several productions that summer and developed a lasting friendship with DeMille.
His brother, William, was establishing himself as a playwright and sometimes invited DeMille to collaborate. DeMille and William collaborated on The Genius, The Royal Mounted, and After Five. None of these was very successful. William de Mille 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 later adapted Belasco's The Girl of the Golden West, Rose of the Rancho, and The Warrens of Virginia into films. He was credited with the conception of Belasco's The Return of Peter Grimm. The Return of Peter Grimm sparked controversy, 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.