Martin Scorsese recalled that DeMille had the skill to maintain control of not only the lead actors in a frame but the many extras in the frame as well. [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". [269] He often appeared in his coming-attraction trailers and narrated many of his later films,[270] even stepping on screen to introduce The Ten Commandments. They screened four of his films at Christ Church, where DeMille and his family attended church when they lived there. [104], In the early 1920s, scandal surrounded Paramount; religious groups and the media opposed portrayals of immorality in films. He wanted to prevent other companies from shooting on . Cecil B. DeMille was a master of spectacle. [84] His specific use of lighting, influenced by his mentor David Belasco, was for the purpose of creating "striking images" and heightening "dramatic situations". [165] This film would be his last. He was entombed at the Hollywood Memorial Cemetery (now known as Hollywood Forever). In March 1938, he underwent a major emergency prostatectomy. The United States Supreme Court declined to review his case. Cecil B. DeMille's "Ten Commandments" is getting appropriately colossal treatment in honor of its 55th anniversary. "[132] Consequently, he had to resign from the radio show. DeMille's film The Affairs of Anatol came under fire. [32] From 1904 to 1905, DeMille attempted to make a living as a stock theatre actor with his wife Constance. [109] Eight of his films were "epics" with five of those classified as "Biblical". DeMille also was planning a film about the space race as well as another biblical epic about the Book of Revelation. [101], After five years and thirty hit films, DeMille became the American film industry's most successful director. 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. Birth place. [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. 22. [250] Five of DeMille's film were the highest-grossing films at the year of their release, with only Spielberg topping him with six of his films as the highest-grossing films of the year. [32] 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. [18] DeMille and William collaborated on The Genius, The Royal Mounted, and After Five. [125], Cecil B. DeMille was outspoken about his strong Episcopalian integrity but his private life included mistresses and adultery. Farnum chose $250 per week. The first, for radio contributions, is located at 6240 Hollywood Blvd. They struggled to adapt the play from the stage to the set. [191] Plot and dialogue were not a strong point of DeMille's films. [49] In the 1910s, DeMille began directing and producing other writer's plays. [28] This was the first of few film collaborations with his brother William. [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. He began his career as a stage actor in 1900. 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). Cause of Death: Heart Attack. [258], DeMille was one of the first directors to become a celebrity in his own right. [160] Production of The Ten Commandments began in October 1954. Early Life A Biblical epic with sex, it was a characteristically DeMille film. In that respect, he was better than any of us. [5] DeMille was named after his grandmothers Cecelia Wolff and Margarete Blount. Sarris added that despite the influence of styles of contemporary directors throughout his career, DeMille's style remained unchanged. Now he wants to make the life of Moses. [84] While on a European vacation in 1921, DeMille contracted rheumatic fever in Paris. It was the longest (3 hours, 39 minutes) and most expensive ($13million) film in Paramount history. [263] Joseph Henabery recalled that DeMille looked like "a king on a throne surrounded by his court" while directing films on a camera platform. [130] Broadcast on the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) from 1935 to 1954,[131] the Lux Radio show was one of the most popular weekly shows in the history of radio. He called this place, "Paradise", declaring it a wildlife sanctuary; no shooting of animals was allowed besides snakes. [80] The first few years of the Lasky Company were spent in making films nonstop, literally writing the language of film. [278] As one of the establishing members of Paramount Pictures and co-founder of Hollywood, DeMille had a role in the development of the film industry. Compared to other directors, few film scholars have taken the time to academically analyze his films and style. 77. [128] He supported Herbert Hoover and in 1928 made his largest campaign donation to Hoover. Cecil Blount DeMille (August 12, 1881 - January 21, 1959) was an American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. He was a Freemason who remained a member of Prince of Orange Lodge #16 in New York . [187] E.H. Sothern's early influence on DeMille's work can be seen in DeMille's perfectionism. [64] The Lasky Company bought the rights to the play The Squaw Man by Edwin Milton Royle and cast Dustin Farnum in the lead role. (Cecil Blount De Mille o DeMille; Ashfield, 1881 - Hollywood, 1959) Productor y director de cine estadounidense recordado especialmente por sus superproducciones de epopeyas histricas y religiosas. The surgery caused him to suffer from sexual dysfunction for the rest of his life, according to some family members. The 1956 film was a partial remake of an earlier silent . The project was later completed by DeMille's former assistant director. Hijo del dramaturgo Henry Churchill DeMille, en cuyas obras particip durante su infancia y primera adolescencia, curs . DeMille frequently made cameos as himself in other Paramount films. His daughter Cecilia took over as director as DeMille sat behind the camera with Loyal Griggs as the cinematographer. [133] He began presenting speeches across the United States for the next few years. [41] DeMille and his brother at times worked with the legendary impresario David Belasco, who had been a friend and collaborator of their father. DeMille toured with the circus while helping write the script. Beatrice was intelligent, educated, forthright, and strong-willed. 72 pictures of Cecil B. DeMille. [177] Cecilia lived in the house for many years until her death in 1984,[178] but the house was auctioned by his granddaughter Cecilia DeMille Presley who also lived there in the late 1980s. [57] 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 lisabeth. His films were distinguished by their epic scale and by his cinematic showmanship. [60] In addition to directing, DeMille was the supervisor and consultant for the first year of films made by the Lasky Feature Play Company. He was her mentor, while she was for many years his mistress (a liaison which was tolerated by De Mille's long-suffering wife Constance Adams ). [7] His brother, William C. DeMille, was born on July 25, 1878. Sitting in an IMAX Between 1913 and 1956, he made a total of 70 features, both silent and sound films.He is acknowledged as a founding father of the cinema of the United States and the most commercially successful producer-director in film history. In other "Talk Shop" columns, DeMille explained that "no stone was left unturned to make the picture absolutely true to the life portrayed" and that he had brought in "eighteen big Tiger Tribe Indians . [85][86] In addition to his Paradise, DeMille purchased a yacht in 1921 which he called The Seaward. DeMille is one of the more commercially successful film directors in history[246] with his films before the release of The Ten Commandments estimated to have grossed $650million worldwide. [234], DeMille was interested in art and his favorite artist was Gustave Dor; DeMille based some of his most well-known scenes on the work of Dor. [281] However, not everyone received DeMille's religious films favorably. Barbara Stanwyck. DeMille used clips from his own films in Land of Liberty. His father, Henry Churchill de Mille (1853-1893), was a North Carolina-born dramatist and lay reader in the Episcopal Church, who had earlier . [82] Additionally, because of DeMille's cordiality after the Peter Grimm incident, DeMille was able to rekindle his partnership with Belasco. [39] Another unperformed play he wrote was Son of the Winds, a mythological Native American story. The Enigmatic Pop Culture Professional. Name Constance DeMille Cause of death pneumonia: Born April 27, 1874 . [152] Art Arthur also interviewed people for the autobiography. The sets and effects were so realistic that 30 extras needed to be hospitalized due to a scene with fireballs and flaming arrows. Work period (start) 1899; Work period (end) 1959; Country of citizenship: [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. [120] After his contract ended at MGM, he left, but no production studios would hire him. LOS ANGELES -- Cecilia de Mille Harper, daughter of pioneer film-director Cecil B. de Mille and one of the first child movie actresses, has died after a long battle with . They continued filming in 1955 in Paris and Hollywood on 30 different sound stages. DeMille was born in Ashfield, Massachusetts, and grew up in New York City. William deMille reluctantly became a story editor. Long before he made his first sound picture, DeMille had become a cinema . Henry was a tall, red-headed student. His first several films were westerns and he produced a chain of westerns during the sound era. However, his final films maintained that DeMille was still respected by his audiences. [179][note 12], DeMille believed his first influences to be his parents, Henry and Beatrice DeMille. [180] His playwright father introduced him to the theater at a young age. [315] He was further nominated in the Best Picture category for The Ten Commandments at the 1957 Academy Awards. [76][77] The film grossed over ten times its budget after its New York premiere in February 1914. [169] DeMille attended the Santa Barbara premiere of The Buccaneer in December 1958. Covers. With his editor, Anne Bauchens, DeMille used editing techniques to allow the visual images to bring the plot to climax rather than dialogue. Memoir of DeMille titled 'The Autobiography of Cecil B. DeMille' was published in 1959. Date of death: 21 January 1959 Hollywood: Cause of death: heart failure; Place of burial: Hollywood Forever Cemetery; Pseudonym: C.B. [88] On July 19, 1916, the Jesse Lasky Feature Play Company merged with Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Company, becoming Famous Players-Lasky. Despite his loss, DeMille continued to lobby for the TaftHartley Act, which passed. Cecil Blount DeMille. [255] Andrew Sarris, a leading proponent of the auteur theory, ranked DeMille highly as an auteur in the "Far Side of Paradise", just below the "Pantheon".
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