Movie posters. Heart Ailment. His first several films were westerns and he produced a chain of westerns during the sound era. [84] His specific use of lighting, influenced by his mentor David Belasco, was for the purpose of creating "striking images" and heightening "dramatic situations". The second star is located at 1725 Vine Street. The first 24 of his silent films were made in the first three years of his career (1913-1916). Henry, a . English Wikipedia. DeMille's mother sent him to Pennsylvania Military College (now Widener University) in Chester, Pennsylvania, at age 15. DeMille served as executive producer, overseeing producer Henry Wilcoxon. [126] DeMille was a conservative Republican activist, becoming more conservative as he aged. [139] DeMille was anti-communist and abandoned a project in 1940 to film Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls due to its communist themes despite the fact he had already paid $100,000 for the rights to the novel. [231], According to Scott Eyman, DeMille's films were at the same time masculine and feminine due to his thematic adventurousness and his eye for the extravagant. DeMille would stick to his large-budget spectaculars for the rest of his career. [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. Martin Scorsese cited Unconquered, Samson and Delilah, and The Greatest Show on Earth as DeMille films that have imparted lasting memories on him. It was the longest (3 hours, 39 minutes) and most expensive ($13million) film in Paramount history. Here, he parts the Red Sea. DeMille plays himself in the film. He stated that The Ten Commandments was the final culmination of DeMille's style. His first three films were Westerns, and he filmed many Westerns throughout his career. 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 ). When the AFRA expanded to television, DeMille was banned from television appearances. Eventually, the Guard was enlarged to a battalion and recruited soldiers from other film studios. Robin Williams, 2005. The other three children were surprised by this, as DeMille did not treat the children differently in life. [201], DeMille experimented in his early films with photographic light and shade which created dramatic shadows instead of glare. [202] Another important aspect of DeMille's editing technique was to put the film away for a week or two after an initial edit in order to re-edit the picture with a fresh mind. [180] His playwright father introduced him to the theater at a young age. [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". DeMille was painstakingly attentive to details on set and was as critical of himself as he was of his crew. His daughter Cecilia took over as director as DeMille sat behind the camera with Loyal Griggs as the cinematographer. Stills. 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. Cecil B. DeMille. [162] Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, it grossed over $80million, which surpassed the gross of The Greatest Show on Earth and every other film in history, except for Gone with the Wind. Cecil Blount DeMille was born in Ashfield, Massachusetts, while his parents were vacationing there, and grew up in Washington, North Carolina. [8] 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. Golden Globes 1953 - Best Director and Best . [118] His first three sound films were produced at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. [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. [103] It held the Paramount record for twenty-five years until DeMille broke the record again himself. DeMille was accused of antisemitism after the release of The King of Kings,[282] and director John Ford despised DeMille for what he saw as "hollow" biblical epics meant to promote DeMille's reputation during the politically turbulent 1950s. With his editor, Anne Bauchens, DeMille used editing techniques to allow the visual images to bring the plot to climax rather than dialogue. (Born, August 13, 1881 - died January 21, 1959) Cecil Blount DeMille's career plowed relentlessly forward living and dying again and again in waves - on the crests and in the troughs of the "American Dream.". Story 2018 . [111], The immense popularity of DeMille's silent films enabled him to branch out into other areas. "[156], Alfred Zukor responding to DeMille's proposal of The Ten Commandments remake, In 1952, DeMille sought approval for a lavish remake of his 1923 silent film The Ten Commandments. Biography - A Short WikiDirector of the epic 1956 film The Ten Commandments, which featured Charlton Heston as Moses. [60] As director-general, DeMille's job was to make the films. Early Life He had completely adapted to the production of sound film despite the film's poor dialogue. He was eventually introduced to Oscar Apfel, a stage director who had been a director with the Edison Company. Jeakins admitted that she received quality training from him, but that it was necessary to become a perfectionist on a DeMille set to avoid being fired. Birthplace: Laramie, Albany County, Wyoming, United States. [172] DeMille's funeral was held on January 23 at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church. Compared to other directors, few film scholars have taken the time to academically analyze his films and style. [268] DeMille appeared as himself in numerous films, including the MGM comedy Free and Easy. Pictorials. DeMille adored the art of Groesbeck, even hanging it above his fireplace, but film staff found it difficult to convert his art into three-dimensional sets. Cecil B. DeMille was a master of spectacle. His family's, DeMille's niece and William deMille's daughter. [129] DeMille also liked Franklin D. Roosevelt, however, finding him charismatic, tenacious, and intelligent and agreeing with Roosevelt's abhorrence of Prohibition. U.S. State: Massachusetts. [44], DeMille performed on stage with actors whom he would later direct in films: Charlotte Walker, Mary Pickford, and Pedro de Cordoba. [32] From 1904 to 1905, DeMille attempted to make a living as a stock theatre actor with his wife Constance. [49] In the 1910s, DeMille began directing and producing other writer's plays. The cuts were sometimes rough, but the movies were always interesting. Moreover, DeMille's epics inspired directors such as Howard Hawks, Nicholas Ray, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and George Stevens to try producing epics. [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. [9] DeMille's father was also an English teacher at Columbia College (now Columbia University). In the silent era, he was renowned for Male and Female (1919), Manslaughter (1922), The Volga Boatman (1926), and The Godless Girl (1928). The legendary comedian, 61, has been confirmed to receive one of the night's highest honors, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, given as a way to honor "outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment," per the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Between 1914 and 1956, he made seventy feature films; all but seven were profitable. DeMille: The Master of the American Biblical Epic . According to Richard Birchard, DeMille's weakened state during production may have led to the film being received as uncharacteristically substandard. . DeMille recalled that this church was the place where he visualized the story of his 1923 version of The Ten Commandments.[25]. [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. [76][77] The film grossed over ten times its budget after its New York premiere in February 1914. William deMille reluctantly became a story editor. However, Beatrice introduced Lasky to DeMille instead. 27 October 2022. 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. [211] He despised actors who were unwilling to take physical risks, especially when he had first demonstrated that the required stunt would not harm them. Alternative names DeMille, Cecil Blount Short description Film director: Date of birth August 12, 1881 Place of birth Famous Players-Lasky donated the films. [132] DeMille would never again work on radio. Constance Adams DeMille (April 27, 1873 July 17, 1960) actress and wife of filmmaker Cecil Blount DeMille. His poor physical condition upon his return home affected the production of his 1922 film Manslaughter. Constance Adams DeMille (April 27, 1873 - July 17, 1960) was an American actress and wife of filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille. Noisy and bright, it was not well-liked by critics, but was a favorite among audiences. Broadway Actor. Cecil B. DeMille's trademark films were Biblical and historical dramas, usually told in sweeping, big-budget scale, emblematic of overwrought Hollywood hugeness. He said he was rather against union leaders such as Walter Reuther and Harry Bridges whom he compared to dictators. Consequently, DeMille's television and radio appearance ban lasted for the remainder of his life, though he was permitted to appear on radio or television to publicize a movie. She had a Southern drawl which she never lost. [46] Life was difficult for DeMille and his wife as traveling actors; however, traveling allowed him to experience part of the United States he had not yet seen. [41] His first play was The Pretender-A Play in a Prologue and 4 Acts set in seventeenth century Russia. They also learned that other filmmakers were successfully shooting in Los Angeles, even in winter. The actor had 10 Globes nominations and five wins, including a special award for his vocal work on . However, Birchard acknowledged that Sarris's point was more likely that DeMille's style was behind the development of film as an art form. [263] Joseph Henabery recalled that DeMille looked like "a king on a throne surrounded by his court" while directing films on a camera platform. The Roaring Twenties were the boom years and DeMille took full advantage, opening the Mercury Aviation Company, one of America's first commercial airlines. [61], The Lasky Play Company sought out William DeMille to join the company, but he rejected the offer because he did not believe there was any promise in a film career. He went before the Paramount board of directors, which was mostly Jewish-American. 1. [143] [note 9] In 1938, DeMille supervised the compilation of film Land of Liberty to represent the contribution of the American film industry to the 1939 New York World's Fair. He is from USA. [186] Generally, Belasco's influence of DeMille's career can be seen in DeMille's showmanship and narration. 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). [160] Production of The Ten Commandments began in October 1954. However, he did take a few months to set up a movie theater for the French front. Terrible. Cecil Blount DeMille was a founder of the Hollywood motion-picture industry, one of the most commercially successful producer-directors of his time, and one of the most influential filmmakers in history. [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". [28] This was the first of few film collaborations with his brother William. [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. Self - The Real FBI Story (2017) . Cecil B. DeMille passed away January 21, 1959, from a heart condition. Its interracial love story made it commercially successful and it first publicized Hollywood as the home of the U.S. film industry. To diseased proportions. [245], Known as the father of the Hollywood motion picture industry, Cecil B. DeMille made 70 films including several box-office hits. [272] DeMille's reputation had a renaissance in the 2010s. In addition to his use of volatile and abrupt film editing, his lighting and composition were innovative for the time period as filmmakers were primarily concerned with a clear, realistic image. Film Director. She later became the second female play broker on Broadway. . A deficiency in chromium may cause high blood sugar; however, deficiency is very rare. The Ten Commandments gave the director a chance to play God, to film miracles. 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. [115] In 1916, DeMille purchased a mansion in Hollywood. Many of these displays were thought to be staged, however, as an exercise in discipline. Few words can describe the monumental Cecil B. DeMille. The Union Pacific gave DeMille access to historical data, early period trains, and expert crews, adding to the authenticity of the film. [164] Although DeMille completed the film, his health was diminished by several more heart attacks. [271] DeMille was immortalized in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard when Gloria Swanson spoke the line: "All right, Mr. DeMille. [146][note 10] DeMille's subsequent film Unconquered (1947) had the longest running time (146 minutes), longest filming schedule (102 days) and largest budget of $5million. The original story Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare is about two teenagers, Romeo and Juliet, who fall in love and their families' feud ends with death of Romeo and Juliet. [292], In summer 2019, The Friends of the Pompton Lakes Library hosted a Cecil B DeMille film festival to celebrate DeMille's achievements and connection to Pompton Lakes. His films were distinguished by their epic scale and by his cinematic showmanship. Robin Williams won the Cecil B. DeMille Awards in 2005. This Day and Age and Four Frightened People were box office disappointments, though Four Frightened People received good reviews. GitHub export from English Wikipedia. Recommended For You. [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. "Give me any two pages of the Bible, and I'll give you a picture." -Cecil B. DeMille. However, throughout his career, he filmed comedies, periodic and contemporary romances, dramas, fantasies, propaganda, Biblical spectacles, musical comedies, suspense, and war films. Broadway Actor. [17] As a child, DeMille created an alter-ego, Champion Driver, a Robin Hood-like character, evidence of his creativity and imagination. He debuted as an actor on February 21, 1900, in the play Hearts Are Trumps at New York's Garden Theater. Cecil B. DeMille: Film director from the United States (1881 - 1959), Actor, Writer, Film producer, Film director, Film editor, Screenwriter, Playwright, Stage actor . DeMille achieved international recognition for his unique use of lighting and color tint in his film The Cheat. [249] Similarly, scholar David Blanke, argued that DeMille had lost the respect of his colleagues and film critics by his late film career. Find out about Cecil B DeMille's family tree, family history, ancestry, ancestors, genealogy, relationships and affairs! Beatrice DeMille's family was not in attendance, and Simon Louvish suggests that this was to conceal DeMille's partial Jewish heritage. Consequently, his mother hired him for her agency The DeMille Play Company and taught him how to be an agent and a playwright. Ben Gabbe/Getty. [202] DeMille was unique in using this technique. *mother - Ashkenazi Jewish. [239], DeMille's films contained many similar themes throughout his career. DeMille did not believe a large movie set was the place to discuss minor character or line issues. Cecil B. DeMille. [188][189] DeMille recalled that one of the most influential plays he saw was Hamlet, directed by Sothern. [144], In 1942, DeMille released Paramount's most successful film, Reap the Wild Wind. [107] Aside from The King of Kings, none of DeMille's films away from Paramount were successful. 77. However, DeMille's second remake at MGM in 1931 would be a failure. [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. [15], DeMille was a brave and confident child. Spanish Wikipedia. [72] He made his first film run sixty minutes, as long as a short play. For More Information . The longest-living Oscar winner is a recipient of the Golden Globes' prestigious Cecil B. DeMille Award, which he was awarded in 1977, and he received the Producers Guild of America's Lifetime . If you have diabetes and take insulin or other oral medications aimed to reduce blood sugar, taking chromium may increase the risk of . Further illustrated by his home life, DeMille required formality and politeness at home. [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". He produced many flops. He attempted to create a guild of a half a dozen directors with the same creative desires called the Director's Guild. [307] In the same ceremony, DeMille received a nomination from Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures for The Greatest Show on Earth. Age. [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. However, the films of his silent era were often thematically different from the films of his sound era. Cecil Blount DeMille was a legendary. [255], Publicly Episcopalian, DeMille drew on his Christian and Jewish ancestors to convey a message of tolerance. [209][note 13], DeMille was known for autocratic behavior on the set, singling out and berating extras who were not paying attention. [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. An annual award, the Golden Globe's Cecil B. DeMille Award recognizes lifetime achievement in the film industry. During the French New Wave, critics began to categorize certain filmmakers as auteurs such as Howard Hawks, John Ford, and Raoul Walsh. imported from Wikimedia project. DeMille directed The King of Kings (1927), a biography of Jesus, which gained approval for its sensitivity and reached more than 800million viewers.
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