Cecil B. DeMille was one of the most successful filmmakers in Hollywood
history. Out of the seventy films he claimed as his personal productions,
all but six turned a profit, and he remained a leading director of "A"
list features from his first film in 1914 to his last
in 1956.
He was born in Ashfield, Massachusetts on August 12. 1881,
the second son of Henry Churchill de Mille and Matilda Beatrice Samuel
de Mille. His brother, William C. de Mille, was born July 25,
1878 in Washington, North Carolina. Throughout his life, Cecil
used the family spelling "de Mille" in his personal life and
used the variation "DeMille" as his professional name.
Cecil's father taught at Columbia University and was a lay minister
in the Episcopal Church. In 1882, Henry de Mille, who
had unfulfilled dreams of becoming an actor, was hired as a play reader
with Madison Square Theater in New York He started writing plays and
entered into a very successful collaboration with the silver haired
"wizard of Broadway," David Belasco.
Henry de Mille died in February, 1893, and his widow
turned the family home into a girl's school. Later she established the
DeMille Play Company as an agency for plays and playwrights. Cecil attended
Pennsylvania Military College and later attended the American Academy
of Dramatic Arts. He made his stage debut as an actor on February
21, 1900 in "HEARTS ARE TRUMPS."
During his time as a touring actor, Cecil met actress Constance Adams.
They were married on August 16, 1902, and would eventually
have four children. Cecilia DeMille was their biological child. Katherine,
Richard and John DeMille were adopted.
In addition to his work as an actor, Cecil also helped his mother manage
the DeMille Play Company, and he directed or stage managed a number
of shows. He also wrote or co-wrote plays, including a one act vaudeville
drama called "THE ROYAL MOUNTED," which would
later serve as the basis for his 1940 film "NORTH
WEST MOUNTED POLICE." Following in his father's
footsteps, he collaborated with David Belasco on "THE RETURN
OF PETER GRIMM," and he also wrote several one-act operettas
with vaudeville producer Jesse L. Lasky. This association with Lasky
led to a lasting friendship.
By 1913, with theatrical prospects bleak, Lasky, DeMille
and Lasky's brother-in-law Samuel Goldfish formed the Jesse L. Lasky
Feature Play Company to produce feature length motion picture versions
of popular plays. Their first film was "THE
SQUAW MAN", released in early 1914
to great success. Cecil B. DeMille was named director General of the
new company, supervising all production as well as writing and directing
his own pictures. Cecil developed a reputation as one of the finest
directors in the business with films like "CARMEN"
(1915), "THE CHEAT"
(1915) and "THE GOLDEN CHANCE"
(1916).
Although the Lasky feature Play company had a shaky start, the company's
success became assured when it joined with Adolph Zukor's Famous Players
Films Company and Frank Garbutt's Bosworth, Inc. to distribute films
through the newly formed Paramount Pictures Corporation headed by W.
W. Hodkinson. In 1916 the three production companies
merged to form the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, and then assumed
control of Paramount.
Cecil B. DeMille retained his position as Director General with Famous
Players, but he gradually gave up his supervisory duties to concentrate
on making his own pictures. His first large scale spectacle, "JOAN
THE WOMAN" (1916), received critical
acclaim, but met with only modest box-office success, and for the next
several years Cecil was forced to give up his dream of "painting
on a big canvas."
During the late 1910's and early 1920's,
Cecil turned out a successful and influential series of domestic social
comedies. Films like "OLD WIVES FOR NEW"
(1918), "DON'T CHANGE YOUR HUSBAND"
(1919) and "WHY CHANGE YOUR WIFE?"
(1920) gained great attention by focusing on married
life rather than on the usual boy-meets-girl formula, and DeMille was
able to satisfy his desire to make spectacles by inserting elaborate
historical flashback sequences into several of these films.
In this period, DeMille also began to expand his business interests.
In 1919 he established Mercury Aviation, the first
commercial airline service to carry passengers on a regular schedule.
He also sat on the board of the Bank of Italy (later Bank of America)
and helped establish the bank's relationship with the motion picture
industry.
In 1923, Cecil B. DeMille was allowed to try his hand
at another large-scale spectacle.
"THE TEN COMMANDMENTS" delivered on the spectacular
in a big way--but it also went tremendously over budget and caused a
strain in relations between DeMille and Famous Players-Lasky. Although
"THE TEN COMMANDMENTS" proved to be one of
the most successful films of the silent era, the studio did not renew
DeMille's contract.
In 1925, with independent financing, he set up his
own studio, Cecil B. DeMille Pictures, Inc. The new company was located
at the former Thomas H. Ince studio in Culver City. During its three
year existence, DeMille supervised dozens of moderately budgeted program
pictures and made annual specials. Although his personal productions
"THE VOLGA BOATMAN" and
"THE KING OF KINGS"
were major box-office hits, the studio's overall program did not perform
well enough to sustain the company. It was absorbed by the Pathe Exchange,
Inc. and DeMille signed a three picture deal with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
DeMille came to M-G-M just as silents were giving way to sound pictures.
His first talking picture, "DYNAMITE" (1929),
showed great skill in using the new medium and proved to be a modest
hit. His next two pictures, "MADAM SATAN"
(1930) and a remake of "THE SQUAW MAN,"
were also well made films, but in the severe economic downturn that
led to the Great Depression they proved to be box-office failures. His
M-G-M contract was not renewed. After years of success in Hollywood,
DeMille, who also took a beating in the stock market collapse in 1929,
faced the prospect of being unemployed and nearly broke.
In 1931, Cecil and his wife went on an extended European
vacation, hoping to stir up film production deals in Great Britain and
the Soviet Union, but nothing came of these negotiations. Upon returning
to Hollywood, Cecil managed to obtain a one-picture deal to produce
and direct "THE SIGN OF THE CROSS." His old
studio, Paramount, put up half the budget and DeMille financed the balance
on his own. "THE SIGN OF THE CROSS" proved
to be a tremendous hit, and DeMille remained with Paramount for the
rest of his career.
In 1936 he signed on as host of the Lux Radio Theater
a dramatic anthology series that aired over the CBS radio network, and
these radio appearances made Cecil B. DeMille a household name. He remained
with the show for nearly nine years, but a dispute with his union over
a one dollar assessment for political activity brought his radio career
to an end. DeMille disagreed with the Union's stance, and refused to
be levied a fee for a cause he did not support. Suspended by the union,
DeMille was forced to give up his $100,000 a year position on the Lux
Radio Theater when he lost a court challenge over the $1 fee.
The incident with AFRA (American Federation of Radio Artists) was not
the only union drama in which DeMille’s views became controversial.
In 1950, dissention was fomenting within the Screen
Director’s Guild over President Truman’s loyalty oath, which
DeMille supported. Affidavits had been required of labor organization’s
officers stating they had no Communist affiliations. John Ford, who
was a Director’s Guild board member, signed such an affidavit,
as did the Guild’s president, Joseph L. Mankiewicz. DeMille wanted
to extend the oath to the full membership; Mankiewicz did not. On October
22nd, the SDG held a large, contentious meeting where DeMille confronted
fellow Republican Mankiewicz. Members were divided on the issue, but
DeMille’s at times caustic rhetoric offended some people and he
lost the contest. Later that week, Mankiewicz sent letters to the SDG
members asking them to voluntarily sign the oath.
For years, rumors persisted among DeMille’s political opponents
that he had testified against Mankiewicz before the House Un-American
Activities Committee—which DeMille never did—nor did he
ever testify against anyone else in a government hearing. In 1948
he did testify before the House Sub-Committee on Labor Relations where
he criticized restrictive labor practices and leftist influences within
the unions.
In 1954, recognizing the unfairness of the broad McCarthy
blacklist, he hired several blacklisted people for "THE
TEN COMMANDMENTS" (1956) –
among them composer Elmer Bernstein and actor Edward G. Robinson. In
his autobiography, "All My Yesterdays",
Robinson credited DeMille with saving his career.
To the end of his career, DeMille maintained his ability to produce
box-office blockbusters. Whether making stories with American historical
themes like "THE PLAINSMAN"
(1936) or "REAP
THE WILD WIND" (1942); or Biblical
spectacles like "SAMSON AND DELILAH" (1949)
and his remake of "THE TEN COMMANDMENTS"
(1956), Cecil B. DeMille created some of the most successful
and widely seen films of all time.
Cecil suffered a heart attack on location in Egypt during the making
of the
"THE TEN COMMANDMENTS,"
but managed to recover sufficiently to finish the picture. He served
as uncredited executive producer on "THE BUCCANEER"
(1958), leaving the direction to his son-in-law Anthony
Quinn (married to Katherine DeMille).
Cecil B. DeMille was planning a film on space exploration at the time
of his death on January 21, 1959.
Biography
written by Robert
S. Birchard
