Biography – Cecil B. DeMille Biography Overview 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. Between 1914 and 1956, he made seventy feature films; all but seven were profitable. Cecil B. DeMille is synonymous with religious epics: The King of Kings, Samson and Delilah, and The Ten Commandments (1956). He blended spectacle, sex, and spellbinding narrative to convey a message of faith. It was DeMille who created the image of the omnipotent director, megaphone in hand, wearing boots and a visored cap. DeMille gave Hollywood numerous stars: Wallace Reid, Gloria Swanson, William (“Hopalong Cassidy”) Boyd, Claudette Colbert, Robert Preston, Jean Arthur, and Charlton Heston. DeMille created the posts of studio story editor, art director, and concept artist. He was one of the first to use theatrical lighting on a movie set.

In the late 1920s, when Hollywood converted to sound films, DeMille defied the sound experts, liberating the camera from a confining booth, and implementing the microphone boom. DeMille’s authority extended beyond the confines of his studio. He was a power in aviation, banking, politics, and real estate. In the 1930s, his fame as a filmmaker was surpassed by his fame as a radio star. He was a founder of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, an institution from which he eventually won two awards. In 1953 his film The Greatest Show on Earth won the Award for Best Picture of 1952; and he was presented with the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. DeMille’s influence on world culture is incalculable, but there are estimates and milestones. His biography of Jesus Christ, The King of Kings, was a silent film, but because of a unique distribution arrangement, it was eventually seen by 800 million viewers. Samson and Delilah (1949) and The Ten Commandments (1956) are still listed with the top ten all-time box-office champions.

They continue to generate revenue and provoke thought. Cecil B. DeMille directing The Ten Commandments in Egypt, November 1954. Portrait by G.E. Richardson Cecil B. DeMille, the image of the Hollywood director. Portrait by Witzel Birth and Lineage Cecil B. DeMille was born on August 12, 1881, in Ashfield, Massachusetts. His father, Henry de Mille, was born in Washington, North Carolina, of Dutch and English ancestry. Henry was an Episcopal lay minister and a successful playwright. DeMille’s mother was born Beatrice Samuels to German-Jewish parents in London but was raised in New York. Before her marriage to Henry de Mille, she converted to the Protestant Episcopal faith. Beatrice was an educator and later became the second female play broker in America. Cecil had an older brother William (born 1878), and a sister Agnes (1891-1895). Henry & Beatrice de Mille The DeMille Name and its Variants Cecil used the spelling DeMille in his professional life, and de Mille in private life.

The family name de Mille was used by his daughter Cecilia, and given to his adopted children, John, Katherine, and Richard. It was also used by Cecil’s brother William, and by William’s daughters Margaret and Agnes. It is used by his granddaughter Cecilia de Mille Presley. Early Years DeMille’s childhood was memorable for sojourns in a rented house at Echo Lake, New Jersey. It was here that he learned to love nature, through the flora and fauna of the lake. He was introduced to the dramatic arts as he watched his father write plays with the acclaimed David Belasco. Henry often asked Cecil and William for their opinions of the latest draft. In the evenings Henry read to his children, first from the Bible and then from either a literary classic or a history book. Cecil learned the connection between preaching and the theater. In 1892 the close-knit de Mille family moved to a newly built house in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey. In 1893 tragedy struck when Henry de Mille fell ill with typhoid fever and died. Two years later the infant Agnes died of spinal meningitis.

Beatrice de Mille converted the Pompton Lakes home to a school for girls. She sent William to Columbia University and Cecil to the Pennsylvania Military College. Cecil then studied acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where Henry had taught. Cecil graduated in 1900. Cecil de Mille as a child Stage DeMille made his Broadway acting debut on February 21, 1900, in the Cecil Raleigh comedy Hearts Are Trumps. He appeared in about ten plays, and then grew interested in writing and directing. By this time his brother William de Mille had become a successful playwright and Cecil worked on plays with him. Marriage and Family While on tour with Hearts Are Trumps in Washington, D.C., DeMille met an actress named Constance Adams. They were married on August 16, 1902. Their daughter Cecilia was born on October 5, 1908. Cecil and Constance Playwriting The Genius, DeMille’s first play, was produced in 1906. Because he was working in the out-of-style idiom of melodrama, he was unable to score a hit.

His did have success in 1907 with his brother and The Warrens of Virginia. In 1911 DeMille wrote a play for his father’s friend, David Belasco, who was by then a power on Broadway. The Return of Peter Grimm was a success but Belasco reneged on credit. DeMille returned to work with his mother Beatrice at her agency, the De Mille Play Company. Collaboration with Jesse Lasky In October 1911 Beatrice de Mille introduced Cecil to Jesse L. Lasky, a San Francisco native who had worked his way up from a vaudeville cornettist to producing shows. Lasky was hoping to engage William de Mille to co-write miniature musical comedies. Beatrice pushed Lasky in Cecil’s direction. Lasky and DeMille hit it off, since they both had great enthusiasm for playwriting and for the theatre. Their first project, an operetta called California, was a hit, yet thirty-year-old DeMille wanted success on his own. Between 1911 and 1913, he had several flops.

By mid-1913, he was considering a career as a war correspondent in Mexico. DeMille’s first collaboration with Jesse L. Lasky was a stage musical. The Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company Jesse Lasky’s sister Blanche had retired from vaudeville to marry Samuel Goldfish, a prosperous glove salesman. (He later changed his name to Samuel Goldwyn). Lasky and Goldwyn proposed that DeMille forget about plays and try moving pictures. DeMille was at first skeptical of this crude form of entertainment, but he saw the potential for both art and profit. In July 1913 he joined Lasky, Goldwyn, and an attorney named Arthur Friend to form the Jesse L Lasky Feature Play Company. The First Feature Film Made in Hollywood In the fall of 1913 DeMille suffered two more theatrical disappointments. At his usual lunch in the Claridge Grill, he reported his progress to his best friends—Jesse Lasky, Sam Goldwyn, and Arthur Friend. On November 23, 1913, Lasky proposed that their company make a film version of The Squaw Man, a long-running stage hit.

Goldwyn sent DeMille to the Edison Studio in the Bronx to see how “flickers” were made. He came away confident that he could direct better than the filmmakers he observed. On December 12, DeMille set out for California with stage star Dustin Farnum, a crew, and a co-director, Oscar Apfel. Legend has it that DeMille wanted to shoot his Western in Arizona but was prevented from doing so by a range war, snow, or rain. In fact, there was no impediment in Flagstaff but the scenery. DeMille thought it colorless and boring, so he re-boarded the train for Los Angeles. When DeMille arrived at the Alexandria Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, an actor friend from his touring days recommended a rental studio in a rural suburb called Hollywood. The studio turned out to be a barn, but it had a laboratory and offices, so DeMille asked Lasky and Goldwyn for a go-ahead. On December 29, 1913, DeMille and Apfel began filming The Squaw Man. The first feature film shot in Hollywood was completed on January 20, 1914.

DeMille edited the film in time for a February 17 preview at the Longacre Theatre in New York. There was, however, a problem with incorrectly perforated film stock. In spite of everything, the Squaw Man achieved success beyond anyone’s expectations. DeMille made The Squaw Man, Hollywood’s first feature film, in a barn at the corner of Vine Street and Selma Avenue. The cast of The Squaw Man (1914). Early Films DeMille used revenue from The Squaw Man to accelerate production, and he made thirty films between 1914 and 1917. During this period, he and his artists created the lexicon of filmmaking. The Crucial Merger On June 28, 1916, the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company joined (1) the Hobart Bosworth Company and (2) Adolph Zukor’s Famous Players Films Company to sign with (3) the Paramount Pictures Corporation, a producing-and-distributing combine run by W.W. Hodkinson. Adolph Zukor saw the future of the motion-picture industry in terms of a vertically integrated monopoly: a company must control production, distribution, and exhibition.

Zukor began consolidating power to himself, ousting both Hodkinson and Samuel Goldwyn, a founding member of the Lasky-DeMille company. The Famous Players-Lasky partners: Jesse L. Lasky, Adolph Zukor, Samuel Goldwyn, and Cecil B. DeMille. DeMille’s First Epics The Paramount merger enabled DeMille to make films on an epic scale, but Joan the Woman (1916) cost so much that it could not make a profit. DeMille rebounded with social dramas and marital comedies that were so profitable that he could add an epic approach to the formula. Male and Female (1919) featured a spectacular shipwreck and a flashback to ancient times. It became the first million-dollar-grossing Hollywood film. At this time DeMille began hiring fine-art photographers such as Karl Struss to work as unit stills photographers on his films. He allowed them more time and latitude than was customary, seeing that these sensual images lured patrons to his films.

A Karl Struss scene still of Gloria Swanson in Male and Female (1919) Business In May 1919 DeMille started Mercury Aviation, the first commercial airline in California. He was also president of the Bank of Italy, Culver City branch (later the Bank of America). The Roaring Twenties By 1921, DeMille was the most successful producer-director in America. He had surpassed the legendary D. W. Griffith by tackling the issues of the decade: Prohibition, materialism, women’s rights, sexuality, and divorce. When scandals rocked Paramount, DeMille answered critics with a mammoth morality tale, The Ten Commandments. It brought DeMille more power—and more resentment. He had completed his forty-seventh film when, on January 9, 1925, Adolph Zukor pushed him out of the company he had co-founded. On March 2, 1925, DeMille opened a studio in Culver City, making his own films and producing those of other directors, a business model that lasted only three years.

This period was notable for The King of Kings, a majestic and reverent depiction of the life of Christ that reached an audience of unprecedented size. On August 2, 1928, DeMille signed a three-picture deal with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, just as talking pictures were taking over Hollywood. DeMille refused to obey the dictates of sound engineers and voice coaches, maintaining that movies should move. His first “talkie” was Dynamite (1929). Its use of moving camera and sound effects made it a hit. The Sound Revolution was followed by the Great Depression. DeMille’s next films failed and he left M-G-M, traveling to the Soviet Union and Europe to study new cinematic techniques. A scene from The Ten Commandments (1923) DeMille poses on the set of Dynamite (1929) with the newly blimped sound camera and the silent-film camera he used on The Squaw Man. Hollywood in the Thirties In 1932, braving industry hostility, DeMille returned to Paramount and made a remarkable comeback.

The Sign of the Cross (1932) was a new type of epic, conveying the best elements of his earlier hits with the aesthetics of sound film. DeMille continued in this vein, creating an epic hit with Cleopatra (1934). Then he switched gears, focusing on Americana with The Plainsman (1936) and Union Pacific, which was second only to Gone With the Wind in 1939 grosses. On June 1, 1936, DeMille directed and hosted the first Hollywood broadcast of Lux Radio Theatre, one of the top five programs on the air. A scene from The Sign of the Cross (1932) A scene from The Plainsman (1936) Joan Crawford was a guest star on DeMille’s Lux Radio Theatre in 1936. Box-Office King in the Forties DeMille had an unbroken string of American history hits in the 1940s, all in the newly perfected Technicolor process. He ended the decade with a Biblical blockbuster, Samson and Delilah (1949).

The DeMille formula of sex and religion brought grosses of $11 million ($108 million in 2016 dollars). Samson and Delilah was the third-highest-grossing film to that date. A scene from Samson and Delilah (1949) Legend Triumphant in the Fifties When DeMille turned seventy in 1951, he was producing and directing his most physically demanding film yet, a semi-documentary circus film called The Greatest Show on Earth. Its $12-million box office was matched by the honor of the Academy Award® for Best Picture of 1952, and DeMille was honored with the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. After these back-to-back achievements, DeMille inexplicably met opposition when he proposed an epic on the life of Moses. His one-time nemesis Adolph Zukor helped him win approval, though, and DeMille went to Egypt to film the story at Luxor and on the slopes of Mount Sinai.

On November 7, 1954, while directing 8,000 extras in the desert at Beni Suef, DeMille suffered a severe heart attack. He was seriously ill but, fearing a publicity nightmare, he never missed a day on the set. He recuperated briefly in Los Angeles before shooting studio interiors. The Ten Commandments premiered at New York’s Criterion Theatre on November 8, 1956, shattering box-office records and gaining a unique cultural significance. With this film, DeMille achieved a lifelong goal. He used entertainment to send a message of faith to a worldwide audience. The Ten Commandments is number seven on the list of all-time worldwide adjusted gross, having earned $2.09 billion. The grand total of Cecil B. DeMille’s box-office grosses, when adjusted for inflation, comes to $30 billion. Cecil B.

DeMille directs Charlton Heston as Moses in The Ten Commandments (1956) Last Days Although The Ten Commandments was his last film, DeMille continued developing scripts through 1958, including a space exploration epic and a biography of Lord Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts. On January 21, 1959, aged seventy-seven, Cecil B. DeMille succumbed to heart failure. He was survived by his wife Constance; by his daughter Cecilia de Mille Harper; by his adopted children, John, Katherine, and Richard; and by his grandchildren Peter Calvin, Cecilia de Mille, and Joseph Harper. Mr. DeMille was interred in Hollywood Memorial Cemetery. Cecil B. DeMille 1881 - 1959 Considered one of the founders of Hollywood, film producer and director Cecil B. DeMille earned a place in moviemaking history with such religious epic films as "The Ten Commandments and King of Kings". Although he is one of the most commercially successful film directors of all time, Cecil B.

DeMille has for a long time been considered at best a director of mediocre quality. Still his place in the history of Hollywood movie making is central; in fact, more than anyone else, he deserves to be called the man who founded Hollywood. As Lewis Jacobs has said - as quoted in World Film Directors: "If in the artistic perspective of American Film History, Cecil B. DeMille is valueless; in the social history of films, it is impossible to ignore him." Religious and Theatrical Background DeMille's father was split between wanting to be an actor and wanting to be an Episcopalian priest. It was an internal conflict strangely appropriate for the father of a man who would become identified with making sexually lurid motion pictures from Bible stories. The elder DeMille ended up teaching school until his friendship with David Belasco, the most successful American playwright of the late 19th century, led him to satisfy his theatrical urge by writing plays instead of acting in them. Both his sons followed him into the theater. Cecil's older brother broke in as a playwright, and Cecil tried to make it as an actor; but after ten years on the boards, he was still struggling to feed his family.

As he neared 30, DeMille gave up acting to join his mother in launching a theatrical agency. Working as the general manager, he met Jesse L. Lasky who along with a Samuel Goldfish - later to change his name to Goldwyn - was trying to break into motion picture production. At this time, feeling frustrated, DeMille was thinking of leaving show business altogether; but Lasky, after working on several musical plays with the younger man, convinced him to try his hand at directing a motion picture. After spending a day at Thomas Edison's studios in New York, DeMille took off for Arizona to shoot The Squaw Man, a melodrama based on a Broadway play and set in Wyoming. When the Arizona locations did not work out, DeMille got back on the train and headed off to the end of the line, Los Angeles. The Man Who Founded Hollywood DeMille was not the first person to ever shoot a film in Hollywood, but when he arrived in late 1913, he decided to stay.

The southern California climate was perfect for motion picture making, because even the indoor scenes could be shot outside on sets with three walls and no ceilings, since plenty of sun and not much rain let the crews shoot without having to set up lights, a huge savings in time and money. The barn on the corner of Vine Street in which DeMille set up shop would soon be the world headquarters for Paramount Studios; but at the moment they were sharing facilities with a stable of horses, and things did not always smell nice around the studio. DeMille was the consummate showman from the start and not only in the movies. Writing in World Film Directors, Philip Kemp speaks about De-Mille's making of the image of the Hollywood Filmmaker: "To direct his first movie, DeMille adopted a distinctive costume which he retained largely unaltered throughout his working career and which came to represent the publicly accepted image of an old-style movie director: open-necked shirt, riding breeches, boots and puttees along with a riding-crop, a large megaphone, and a whistle on a neck-chord.

Charges of theatricality were met with pained denial from DeMille who always insisted that his garb was strictly functional … but his costume also undoubtedly reflected his favorite self-image - the movie director as bold and masterful adventurer, intrepid pioneer and empire-builder." With the commercial success of The Squaw Man, De-Mille's founding of Hollywood was complete. He had found the perfect location to make movies, he had developed the fashion style that would come to be associated with movie-making, and, now with the money he was making for Paramount, he proved the viability of his creation. The reviews of DeMille's early directorial efforts were very favorable. He worked with Alvin Wyckoff, one of the most important of the first generation of cameramen in Hollywood. Besides shooting motion pictures, Wyckoff invented new camera lenses that had the ability to work under difficult conditions. By the end of 1914, after only three DeMille films, Lasky moved his whole enterprise to California. He bought the barn next door and established a vast studio in the desert. In 1915, DeMille made what many still consider his most impressive film.

Writing in the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, Eric Smoodin writes, "Although he made films until 1956, DeMille's masterpiece may well have come in 1915 with The Cheat. … .For the cinema's first 20 years, editing was based primarily on following action … [but] in The Cheat, through his editing, DeMille created a sense of psychological space." DeMille was the first to use film editing in such an intrusive way to show off what a character is thinking. Produced First Epics In the silent era, DeMille was fast becoming the middle-brow alternative to the high-brow films of D. W. Griffith, still the greatest innovator in film history, and the low-brow silent comedies pouring out of Mack Sennet's and Hal Roach's studios. In 1917, DeMille left his social comedies behind to make his first epic, Joan the Woman, the story of Joan of Arc. One of the longest and most extravagant pictures made to that time, it was a box office disaster.

DeMille had made the first feature released in this country several years before, but audiences were not ready for the extra time he added to Joan. The next years were difficult ones of DeMille. Two pictures he made with Mary Pickford flopped, and after several more mediocre films, he made The Whispering Chorus. The film meant a lot to him. In the film historian Kevin Brownlow's memorable phrase, he sunk not only his money, "but also his heart" into the film. The story of a man who tries to avoid a debt by faking his death, the film featured a chorus of whisperers who followed him through the movie, speaking his thoughts out loud. Whatever its artistic merit, it was a big failure. Some think it was the disappointment attendant on the reception of The Whispering Chorus which led DeMille to forsake artistic aspirations and concentrate on giving audiences what they wanted. Still whatever his artistic disappointments, DeMille was able to regain his golden touch at the box office, primarily by making social comedies filled with both a bit of titillating sex and moralistic messages. Titles such as We Can't Have Everything and Don't Change Your Husband give a good sense of the message of these movies.

By 1921, the critics held DeMille's work pretty much in contempt for the mix of sex and morality which he peddled so easily, satisfying his audience's erotic urges while at the same time satisfying their puritan tendencies. At the same time, DeMille was helping to set up the Hays Office, the self-policing branch of the Hollywood industry, which censored films for sexual or immoral content. DeMille's worry, shared by many in Hollywood at the time, was that if Hollywood did not censor itself, Congress would. In 1923, he was powerful enough to return to the epic despite the failure of Joan the Woman at the box office. Costing $1,475,000, the first version of The Ten Commandments was probably the most expensive movie made to that time. Adolph Zukor, the studio head, threatened to pull the plug on the movie several times; but in the end, it was a blockbuster, making its huge budget back several times over. Some of the critics even liked it.

He continued making expensive epics, but he did not return to the Bible until 1927 when he filmed a life of Christ entitled King of Kings. His first sound movie was Dynamite, which fared respectably, but his attempt to take advantage of the new medium to make a musical was another failure, Madame Satan. The Crusades, another one of his epics, lost $700,000, perhaps the largest failure in Hollywood history up to that time. Five years later, after a couple of moderately successful westerns, DeMille made his first color film, North West Mounted Police, starring Gary Cooper. His next film, Reap the Wild Wind, distinguished itself by being the first motion picture edited by a woman, Anne Bauchens, to win the Oscar for Best Editing. Neither DeMille, nor any of his films had to that time an Oscar. End of His Career After World War II, DeMille set a new tone for himself when he made Samson and Delilah with Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr. It was widely viewed as one of the most tasteless American films ever made with its tacky special effects and heavy-breathing sexuality.

In 1950, he returned to acting, playing himself in Billy Wilder's acid portrait of Hollywood, Sunset Boulevard. In 1952 he made The Greatest Show on Earth, a film often considered to be the closest movie to a self-portrait that DeMille ever made. It was the first film he made to win an Oscar. The best directing Oscar that year went to John Ford. Unfortunately for DeMille, he was involved in another dispute with John Ford, one which would forever damage DeMille's reputation. DeMille, a politically conservative man, got wrapped up in the McCarthy anti-communist campaign in Hollywood and decided that he wanted to oust Joseph Mankiewicz as president of the Director's Guild. Mankiewicz was a successful director himself and politically liberal. DeMille thought he was soft on communism. A special meeting of the Director's Guild was called to air DeMille's charges. It was a very rancorous meeting attended by nearly every director in the guild. After four hours of debate, John Ford, who had not said a word as of yet, rose to speak.

In an Esquire Magazine article, Peter Bogdonavich recounts the scene with Ford rising and introducing himself, "My name is Jack Ford - I make westerns." He then went on to praise DeMille's ability to produce pictures that appealed to the public - more so, Ford said, than anyone else in the room; he turned to look across the hall now directly at DeMille: "But I don't like you, C. B.," he said, "and I don't like what you've been saying here tonight. I move that we give Joe a vote of confidence - and let's all go home and get some sleep." It is worth noting that DeMille did not mention the episode in his memoirs. He also made his final film with one of the most conservative actors in Hollywood, Charlton Heston. Although the second version of The Ten Commandments is his most widely seen film, thanks to Easter-time television programming, it is not one of his most respected. Still it was a colossal success at the box office, capping a directing-producing career that was by far the most commercially successful of all time, at least until that of the much later director, Steven Spielberg.

DeMille suffered a heart attack while shooting The Ten Commandments, but he refused to slow down; and soon after, in 1959, on a publicity tour for another picture, one which he produced but did not direct, he had another heart attack which led to his death. Cecil B. DeMille - Biography - IMDb Cecil B. DeMille Biography Showing all 73 items Jump to: Overview (5) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (1) | Trade Mark (1) | Trivia (44) | Personal Quotes (18) | Salary (3) Overview (5) 5' 10" (1.78 m) Mini Bio (1) His parents Henry C. DeMille and Beatrice DeMille were playwrights. His father died when he was 12, and his mother supported the family by opening a school for girls and a theatrical company. Too young to enlist in the Spanish-American War, Cecil followed his brother William C. de Mille to the New York Academy of Dramatic Arts, making his stage debut in 1900. For twelve years he was actor/manager of his mother's theatrical company.

In 1913, Jesse L. Lasky , Samuel Goldwyn and DeMille formed the Lasky Film Company (which years later evolved into Paramount Pictures), and the next year went west to California and produced the successful six reeler, The Squaw Man (1914), of historical significance as the first feature length film produced in Hollywood. He championed the switch from short to feature-length films and is often credited with making Hollywood the motion picture capital of the world. Rather than putting his money into known stars, he emphasized production values. He also developed stars, notably Gloria Swanson . He produced and directed 70 films and was involved in many more. Many of his films were romantic sexual comedies (he is supposed to have believed that Americans were curious only about money and sex). His best-known were biblical epics: The King of Kings (1927), The Ten Commandments (1923), and The Crusades (1935). From 1936 to 1945 he hosted and directed the hour-long "Lux Radio Theatre", which brought the actors and stories of many movies to the airwaves and further established him as the symbol of Hollywood.

He appeared as himself in the classic Sunset Boulevard (1950) with his former star Gloria Swanson as the fictitious disturbed former silent film actress Norma Desmond. His niece Agnes de Mille was the acclaimed choreographer of both the original Broadway production and film version of Oklahoma! (1955). - IMDb Mini Biography By: Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu> Spouse (1) ( 16 August 1902 - 21 January 1959) (his death) (4 children) Trade Mark (1) Film epics, religious or otherwise. Trivia (44) One of the 36 co-founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). Although married to wife Constance for fifty-six years, DeMille had long-term affairs with two other women: Jeanie Macpherson and Julia Faye , occasionally entertaining both women simultaneously on his yacht or his ranch. His wife knew of the affairs, but preferred to live with their children in the main house. DeMille was notable for his courage and athleticism and despised men unwilling to perform dangerous stunts or who had phobias.

He criticized Victor Mature on the set of Samson and Delilah (1949), calling him "100 percent yellow". Only eldest daughter Cecilia de Mille was the DeMilles' natural child, daughter Katherine DeMille and sons John and Richard de Mille being adopted later. Following his death, he was interred at Hollywood Memorial Cemetery (now called Hollywood Forever Cemetery) in Los Angeles, California. Uncle-in-law of B.P. Fineman . Was the original host of the popular "Lux Radio Theater", which presented one-hour radio adaptations of popular movies, often with the original stars, always with many of the biggest names in Hollywood. DeMille served as host/director of the series from its debut in 1936 until 1944, when a politically-oriented dispute with the American Federation of Radio Artists forced his suspension, and ultimate resignation, from the program. William Keighley succeeded him for the remainder of the program's run.

A photograph of DeMille working on the set of Cleopatra (1934) appears in the selvage on the right side of a sheet of 10 USA 37¢ commemorative postage stamps, issued 25 February 2003, celebrating American Filmmaking: Behind the Scenes. Grandfather of Cecilia DeMille Presley . He was perhaps the only director to film two remakes of one of his films: The Squaw Man (1914) (the first film he ever directed), The Squaw Man (1918) and The Squaw Man (1931). At his death, DeMille was in the process of producing/directing an epic film about the creation of the Boy Scouts, to star James Stewart . His estate papers include a script and extensive research material. Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890-1945". Pages 207-222. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987. Remade four of his own films.

Before casting of Victor Mature as the male lead of Samson and Delilah (1949), DeMille considered using a then unknown bodybuilder named Steve Reeves as Samson, after his original choice, Burt Lancaster , declined due to a bad back. DeMille liked Reeves and thought he was perfect for the part, but a clash between Reeves and the studio over his physique killed that possibility. Almost a decade later, Reeves found fame and stardom appearing in Hercules (1958) and many other Italian films. To promote The Ten Commandments (1956), he had stone plaques of the commandments posted at government buildings across the country. Many of them are still standing to this day, and some are now the subjects of First Amendment lawsuits. Died the same day as Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer . He and his wife adopted daughter Katherine DeMille in 1920, when she was 9. He father had died in World War I and her mother died of tuberculosis. Her birth name was Katherine Lester. His son, John Blount Demille, was born in 1913. He was of Spanish descent. DeMille is the subject of many Hollywood legends.

According to one famous story, DeMille once directed a film that required a huge, expensive battle scene. Filming on location in a California valley, the director set up multiple cameras to capture the action from every angle. It was a sequence that could only be done once. When DeMille shouted "Action!", thousands of extras playing soldiers stormed across the field, firing their guns. Riders on horseback galloped over the hills. Cannons fired, pyrotechnic explosives were blown up, and battle towers loaded with soldiers came toppling down. The whole sequence went off perfectly. At the end of the scene, DeMille shouted "Cut!". He was then informed, to his horror, that three of the four cameras recording the battle sequence had failed. In Camera #1, the film had broken. Camera #2 had missed shooting the sequence when a dirt clod was kicked into the lens by a horse's hoof. Camera #3 had been destroyed when a battle tower had fallen on it. DeMille was at his wit's end when he suddenly remembered that he still had Camera #4, which he had had placed along with a cameraman on a nearby hill to get a long shot of the battle sequence.

DeMille grabbed his megaphone and called up to the cameraman, "Did you get all that?". The cameraman on the hill waved and shouted back, "Ready when you are, C.B.!". In another famous story, DeMille was on a movie set one day, about to film an important scene. He was giving a set of complicated instructions to a huge crowd of extras, when he suddenly noticed one female extra talking to another. Enraged, DeMille shouted at the extra, "Will you kindly tell everyone here what you are talking about that is so important?". The extra replied, "I was just saying to my friend, 'I wonder when that bald-headed son-of-a-bitch is going to call lunch.'" DeMille glared at the extra for a moment, then shouted, "Lunch!". In another story, DeMille welcomed a new assistant to his private bungalow on the Paramount Studios lot. "This is an old building," he told the young man. "You'll notice the floor slants down and to the left. I'm placing you in the left side office at the end of the hall, so you can watch the heads as they roll by.".

In still another story, DeMille was sitting in a Paramount executive's office, discussing a film he wanted to make. The climax of the film would be yet another huge battle sequence, requiring thousands of extras. When the studio executive complained that it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay all the extras needed for the battle, DeMille smiled wickedly. "I've got that covered," he said. "We'll use real bullets.". The lifetime achievement award from the Hollywood Foreign Press (Golden Globe Awards) is named after him. An active supporter of the practice of blacklisting real or alleged Communists, progressives and other "subversives", in 1952 DeMille attempted to get Joseph L. Mankiewicz removed as President of the Directors Guild because he would not endorse the DeMille-inspired loyalty oath. Directors George Stevens and John Ford managed to block DeMille's efforts. He was a staunch supporter of the Republican Party. Stuntman Jack Montgomery , who played a Christian cavalryman in DeMille's The Crusades (1935), recalled in an interview the tension that existed between DeMille and the dozens of stuntmen hired to do the battle scenes.

They resented what they saw as DeMille's cavalier attitude about safety, especially as several stuntmen had been injured, and several horses had been killed, because of what they perceived to be DeMille's indifference. At one point, DeMille was standing on the parapets of the castle, shouting through his megaphone at the "combatants" gathered below. One of them, who had been hired for his expertise at archery, finally tired of DeMille's screaming at them, notched an arrow into his bow and fired it at DeMille's megaphone, the arrow embedding itself into the device just inches from DeMille's head. He quickly left the set and didn't come back that day. He came back the next day, but for the rest of the picture, DeMille never shouted at the stuntmen again. He was awarded 2 Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Motion Pictures at 1725 Vine Street; and for Radio at 6240 Vine Street in Hollywood, California. During his silent movie days, DeMille wanted to film a romantic scene on a California beach.

His plan was to film the hero and heroine walking together on the beach as the sun slowly rose over the ocean behind them. He instructed his cameramen to "film the perfect sunrise." However, his cameramen informed him that this would be impossible - the sun does not *rise* over the ocean in California. It *sets!* "Well, then get me a sun-*set*," said DeMille. "We'll use rear-screen projection, and run the film in reverse so it looks like the sun is *rising* in the background." DeMille's camera crew went to the beach and filmed the sun setting over the ocean. A few days later, DeMille filmed the scene with the two actors on a movie soundstage made up to look like the beach. The on-location film of the Pacific sunset was reversed and projected on a rear screen, so that it looked as if the sun was rising slowly on the horizon behind the two actors. The scene was filmed in one take, and DeMille was ecstatic. The following day, DeMille and his crew gathered in a studio screening room to watch the scene. The film looked perfect - until DeMille noticed something that literally reduced him to tears.

The reversed "sunrise" behind the two actors looked spectacular - but the waves on the beach were flowing backwards into the ocean, and all the seagulls in the rear projection scene were flying backwards. After The Ten Commandments (1956), his remake of his earlier The Ten Commandments (1923), DeMille began work on a project about Lord Robert Baden-Powell and the Boy Scout movement, but eventually abandoned it in favor of The Buccaneer (1958). The actor he had in mind to play Baden-Powell was David Niven. He was buried alongside his brother William C. de Mille at Hollywood Forever Cemetary. Among the pallbearers were Adolph Zukor , Samuel Goldwyn and Henry Wilcoxon . Profiled in "American Classic Screen Profiles" by John C. Tibbets and James M. Welch (2010). Even when DeMille directed a contemporary story, he would frequently insert a sequence showing the same stars in a previous historical era, playing earlier incarnations of their modern-day characters. According to Gloria Swanson , who became a star in DeMille's films, he included these scenes because he genuinely believed in reincarnation.

Beginning in 1940 and continuing on to the end of his career, DeMille always narrated his films. President of DeMille Pictures Corporation, formed in 1925. From 1940 onward, all of the films that he produced and directed were made in color. According to Tim Adler's book about the history of the Mafia in Hollywood, in the late 1930s De Mille was threatened by the mob, which wanted to swindle him while he was in his hospital bed. DeMille stood up from the bed and ordered the gangster to get out of his room, because he -- DeMille -- was not afraid of the Mafia. According to DeMille he fell in love with film after watching The Great Train Robbery (1903) in Manhattan with Jesse L. Lasky . Several days later they lunched with Sam Goldfish (later to change his name to Samuel Goldwyn ) and attorney Arthur Friend and formed the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company, which later grew to be Paramount Pictures. In a swipe at movie censors, published a satirical newspaper article in which he censored Mother Goose rhymes. His mother was of Jewish descent.

Charlton Heston, star of DeMille's The Greatest Show On Earth (1952) and DeMille's remake of his own The Ten Commandments (1956), wrote in his autobiography In The Arena of DeMille: "I should have thanked him for my career.". A conservative Republican, DeMille refused to cast liberal Democrat Burt Lancaster in Samson and Delilah (1949) and The Greatest Show On Earth (1952) due to politics, despite Lancaster's imposing physique and real life experience as a circus acrobat, which allowed him to do his own stunts. Highly praised for his ability to manage large crowds of extras, the key to DeMille's success at managing the crowds was to give each extra very specific, detailed instructions on what they were to be doing in any given scene, whether it was crossing the street or walking after a carriage or even just conversing with one another. This gave the scenes featuring large crowds a sense of realism and being alive that they otherwise would have liked. His decision to cast Edward G. Robinson in The Ten Commandments (1956) helped undermine the blacklist that DeMille had previously supported.

Personal Quotes (18) The public is always right [to his crew] You are here to please me. Nothing else on Earth matters. Give me any two pages of the Bible and I'll give you a picture. [on the set of North West Mounted Police (1940) when Chief John Big Tree 's war whoops became too enthusiastic] Mr. Big Tree, please - if you just moderate it a little. It's too harrowing. After all, this is only a massacre. It was a theory that died very hard that the public would not stand for anyone dressed in clothes of another period... I got around this objection by staging what we call a vision. The poor working girl was dreaming of love and reading "Tristan and Isolde". The scene faded out, and scenes were depicted on the screen that the girl was supposed to be reading... Thus a bit of costume picture was put over on the man who bought the picture for his theater, and there was no protest from the public. Every time I make a picture the critics' estimate of American public taste goes down ten percent. A picture is made a success not on a set but over the drawing board. I make my pictures for people, not for critics.

I didn't write the Bible and didn't invent sin. [on "The Squaw Man"] I love this story so much that as long as I live I will make it every ten years. [A week before his death, DeMille was asked what his future plans were] Another picture, I imagine... or, perhaps, another world. Most of us serve our ideals by fits and starts. The person who makes a success of living is the one who sees his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. The critics were less than kind to my selection for the other feminine lead, Anne Baxter as Nefretiri. I think the critics went farther wrong there even than they usually do; I think Anne Baxter's performance was very good. Perhaps the critics were too busy thinking what clever things they could write about our misspelling of Nefretiri's name. For the roles of Samson and Delilah (1949), I selected two players quite deliberately because they embody in a large part of the public mind the essence of maleness and attractive femininity, Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr . That casting was risky.

If it turned out that my two leads had nothing to give to the story but the appearance of male strength and female beauty, however superlatively they shone in those qualities, the real point of the story would be lost. But when I saw the rushes of the scene in the grist mill, of Samson mocked in agony and Delilah discovering that the man she has loved and betrayed is now blind, I knew, if I had not known before, that the talents of Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr are more than skin-deep. I cast Yvonne De Carlo as Sephora, the wife of Moses, after our casting director, Bert McKay called my attention to one scene she played in Sombrero (1953), which was a picture far removed in theme from The Ten Commandments (1956), I sensed in her a depth, an emotional power, a womanly strength which the part of Sephora needed, and which she gave it. I am not one who would rail at the public if one of my pictures failed to "get across". The public knows art. I have never yet been connected with a failure, but, if I were, I would blame myself, not my audience.

The first star of a motion picture should be its story. If this star is properly cast - with drama turning upon drama in an ever-widening, accelerating orbit - its spectacular production-value satellites fall logically into place. Once the course and character of this first-magnitude star have been charted, it should be surrounded by a galaxy of stars which fit properly into its field. If their brilliance adds lustre to the main star, so much the better. [on why he chose to include a scene of a Roman bacchanal in Manslaughter (1922)] I wished to show that a nation that is addicted to speed and drunkenness is riding for a fall. The best way to achieve this result was to picturize the greatest nation that ever suffered from these vices and show what happened to it. From this, it is easy to drawn a modern parallel. Salary (3) Cecil B. DeMille Photographs Cecil B. DeMille Photographs Cecil B. DeMille Photographs About this collection Selection of items from the Cecil B. DeMille photographs. Cecil B.

DeMille (1881-1959) was an American director, producer and screenwriter active in film between 1913 and 1959. In 1913 he formed a partnership with Jesse Lasky and Samuel Goldfish (later Goldwyn) called the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company. The company soon merged with Adolph Zukor’s Famous Players Film Company and ultimately became Paramount Pictures, where DeMille became a leading producer. An Academy founder, DeMille received a Special Award in 1949, and the Irving G. Thalberg Award in 1952. That year, he was also nominated for producing and directing THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH, and took home an Oscar when it was named Best Picture of the year. Read more about the Cecil B. DeMille photographs. HOLLYWOODLAND » cecil b demille . . This month celebrates one-hundred years since director Cecil B. DeMille arrived in Los Angeles and rented a barn in the sleepy village of Hollywood to make The Squaw Man. . By Allan R. Ellenberger .

Paramount Pictures traces its beginnings back to the founding of Adolph Zukor’s Famous Players Film Company on June 1, 1912. In 1916, Zukor merged his company with the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company, and with the Paramount Distributing Corp., a subsidiary. The new studio became Famous Players-Lasky Corporation and their films would be distributed under the Paramount name. In 1927 the organization was reorganized under the name Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation. In 1935, the Famous-Lasky name was dropped and the studio officially became Paramount Pictures. . During Paramount’s acquisition of the Lasky Feature Play Company, the studio inherited an unpretentious, at least by Hollywood standards, wooden barn. The origins of that barn have had several incarnations. This is one version. . In 1913, Jesse Lasky, a thirty-three year-old vaudeville producer, knew very little about films and how they were made. What he did know was that the fairly new entertainment medium was cutting into his stage show business. One day as Lasky and his partner, Cecil B.

DeMille were going over the plans for the 1913-1914 Vaudeville season, DeMille dropped a bomb on his friend and partner. DeMille was having problems living on his royalties and his debts were piling up, so he told Lasky he wanted to quit Broadway and go on an adventure. There was a revolution going on in Mexico and he thought about going there. Lasky did not want to lose his best friend so he blurted out an idea that another friend, Sam Goldfish (he later took the name Samuel Goldwyn) had been trying to interest him in—the movies. Suddenly Lasky made a suggestion. “If you want adventure,” Lasky told him, “I’ve got an even better idea—let’s make some movies.” . DeMille grabbed his hand and said, “Let’s.” . “A portion of the motion-picture industry was built on that one word,” Lasky later said. . From left: Jesse Lasky, Samuel Goldfish (Goldwyn) and Cecil B. DeMille . . But Lasky had one condition.

He had seen a four-reel feature starring Sarah Bernhardt called Queen Elizabeth (1912) which Adolph Zukor of the Famous Players Film Company had imported from France for exhibition. If they were going to do this, he wanted to “do it in a big way and make a long picture like Queen Elizabeth.” . After lunch they adjourned to the Lamb’s Club on West Forty-Fourth Street to discuss the details. At the club they ran into actor, Dustin Farnum and, while explaining their idea, asked him if he would star in a long feature they were going to produce. Looking around the room, Farnum saw Edwin Milton Royle the author of The Squaw Man. “You get Royle to sell you The Squaw Man and I might agree to join you,” Farnum told them. . After some discussion, Royle was open to negotiating so Lasky called Goldfish and told him “they were in business.” . The Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company was formed with Lasky as president, Goldfish the general manager, and DeMille would be the director-general.

They each held a quarter of the stock and Farnum agreed to take the other quarter instead of receiving a salary. They paid $15,000 for the rights to The Squaw Man. . At first they planned to film it Fort Lee, New Jersey, just across the river from New York, but Lasky didn’t think that would satisfy DeMille’s penchant for adventure, so he suggested they go to Flagstaff, Arizona where he knew there were real Indians. “It did not seem necessary for us to go to the then new Hollywood, so we looked at the map and selected Flagstaff, Arizona, as a pretty good name for our producing town,” Lasky said. . DeMille was agreeable but Farnum balked at the proposal. As long as he could live at home and work across the river he was willing to be paid off in stock, but if he had to travel across the country, he wanted his salary in cash. With the entire proposition on the verge of collapse, Lasky convinced his wife’s uncle and brother to invest and purchase Farnum’s stock.

Reportedly, if Farnum had held onto the stock for eight years, he could have sold it for almost $2,000,000. . The new producers hired a cameraman with his own camera and they engaged Oscar Apfel to help direct the production. Lasky and Goldfish remained in New York and attended to the sales and financial details as DeMille and Farnum took the train west. . When DeMille finally arrived at Flagstaff, it was raining, so they boarded the train again and continued west to Hollywood. Once there, he sent a telegram to Lasky: “Flagstaff no good for our purpose,” DeMille wired, “Have proceeded to California. Want authority to rent barn in place called Hollywood for $75 a month. Regards to Sam. Cecil.” . Goldfish was furious. Lasky defended DeMille’s decision even though he was not sure it was the right one. After arguing for hours they finally agreed to let the company stay in Hollywood. “Authorize you to rent barn but on month-to-month basis,” Lasky wired back, “Don’t make any long commitment. Regards. Jesse and Sam.” .

The barn that became their studio was located in a grove of orange and lemon trees on the southeast corner of Selma and Vine. Built in 1895, it was once a part of the estate of Colonel Robert Northam, whose mansion was located across the street where the Broadway building now stands. In 1904, Northam sold the estate to Jacob Stern, a realtor who, in March of that year, sold the barn to Harry Revier, a producer-director. In December 1913, Revier rented it to DeMille. . Remodeling the barn into a studio to fit their needs began immediately. The horse stalls were removed and the space gained was transformed into a storage area for equipment the company hoped to buy. The carriage stand was turned into offices, a projection room and a primitive laboratory. The washing block was surrounded by walls and called a vault and the hay and feed section was made into an office, shared by DeMille and Lasky. A 30-foot square platform was built to adjoin the barn on the south side. This platform, the company’s first stage, was covered with a sail rigged to a mast, which could be adjusted to regulate sunlight. .

Shortly, DeMille wired Lasky that production was starting the next day. On December 29, 1913, DeMille ordered “camera” for the first scene of The Squaw Man. The excitement that the production was finally beginning convinced Lasky to come out to Hollywood. . . . When Lasky arrived at the old Santa Fe Station, he told a taxi driver that he wanted to go to Hollywood. “He gave me a puzzled look,” Lasky recalled, “but said, ‘Get in boss—we’ll find it.’” After conferring with other drivers at the Alexandria Hotel, they found their way over dirt roads, past endless orchards and the occasional farmhouse until they came to the Hollywood Hotel. Lasky introduced himself to the clerk and made inquiries about the film company. . “This is my first trip here and I’m not sure where our studio is located,” he told the clerk. “Would you please direct me?” . “I’m sorry,” said the clerk, “I never heard of it.” . “Perhaps I should have told you that the director-general of the company is Cecil B. DeMille,” Lasky stated. . “Never heard of him,” the clerk said.

Disappointed, Lasky was leaving when the clerk called him back. . “Tell you who might help you,” he said. “Drive down this main road till you come to Vine Street. You can’t miss it—it’s a dirt road with a row of pepper trees right down the middle. Follow the pepper trees for about two blocks till you see an old barn. There’s some movie folks working there that might know where your company is.” . When Lasky heard “barn” he knew he had the right place. He found the barn at Selma and Vine with a sign that identified it as the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company. When he opened the door he heard someone say: “There’s the chief.” Outside there was a two-ton Ford truck with the company’s name inscribed on its side. When DeMille saw him, he grabbed his hand and gathered the company around and gave a speech of welcome. Afterward he had a photographer take a photo of Lasky and the company against the truck. . Cecil B. DeMille (right) directs a scene from “The Squaw Man” .

DeMille finished The Squaw Man in three weeks, and Oscar Apfel took over the one stage for his production of Brewster’s Millions (1914), another successful stage play. Edward Abeles, who had starred in the stage production, was brought to Hollywood for the film, which was followed by The Master Mind (1914) and The Only Son (1914). . When The Squaw Man was released, Lasky received a telegram of congratulation from Adolph Zukor, then president of Famous Players. Lasky thought it was generous of him to do so and knew the value of the telegraphic dispatch so he asked Zukor’s permission to use his congratulatory message in their advertising. . Further improvements were made on the barn and the studio lot. In May 1914, electrical illumination was used for the first time to augment sunlight, when tow spotlights arrived from the East and were used in the production of Steward Edward White’s story, The Call of the North (1914). Meanwhile, the studio was expanding. The platform attached to the barn was outgrown, and a larger, open-air stage was constructed.

This received the title of Stage Number One, and when the end of this stage was glassed over, Stage Number One became the pride of the studio and the wonder of Hollywood. Sheds extending from the Selma Avenue side of the barn formed the cutting rooms, carpenter and paint shops, and the first dressing rooms were constructed. . The first feature film to be made on this stage was DeMille’s Rose of the Rancho (1914). This picture marked a definite step forward in the life of the studio, for this was the first film which was shot, in part, on location away from the stages. At this period the first major influx of stars started. H.B. Warner, Max Figman, Theodore Roberts and Mabel Van Buren joined the Lasky forces. Dustin Farnum returned to the studio to star in the first film version of Owen Wister’s novel, The Virginian (1914), under DeMille’s direction. In the east, Marguerite Clark made her screen debut in The Goose Girl (1915). .

Stage Number One was inadequate to handle the expanding production of the studio and a barley field to the south was annexed and Stage Number Two, an exact replica of Number one, was constructed. Soon a third stage was built, and then a fourth. . . . On June 28, 1916, the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company was merged with Adolph Zukor’s Famous Players organization, whose most important asset was Mary Pickford. Zukor and Lasky combined forces and capital and purchased Paramount Pictures on July 19, 1916 and announced the formation of the $25 million Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, which included Paramount as its distributing channel. Zukor was elected president and Lasky was placed in charge of production. . The Lasky Studios looking southeast from the corner of Selma and Vine. The barn is on the far left of the photo. .. Within three years they acquired the entire block between Selma and Sunset on which the former barn was located. The barn was transformed into a small property room and the business offices were moved into a new administration building which extended practically the length of the entire block facing Vine Street.

A new glass stage was erected 60 by 200 feet, and another glass stage of the same length. New carpenter and property construction shops were built 300 by 100 feet in size. The studio had extended its walls a full block. . An aerial view of the Lasky lot (center) . Further expansion continued and a vacant block on Argyle Street to the east was bought and was referred to as the “back yard,” containing fourteen garages and the street sets for outdoor filming. A new double deck paint frame was erected, eight times the size of the former paint frame, which at the time of its construction, was the largest on the Pacific Coast. Over 150 new dressing rooms were built for the stars, members of the organization and the extras. The studio also controlled the Morosco-Pallas Studios at Occidental and Council, and there, a new stage was built and the plant adjusted so that it could handle at least six companies. . Beginning with a total staff of fifteen, just three years after The Squaw Man was completed the Lasky Company now had nearly a thousand on its weekly payroll.

It had a complete printing plant on the grounds, which was used not only for printing sub-titles, but for preparing all stationary and the like. From having two automobiles, one of which was the personal property of Cecil B. DeMille, the Lasky Company now had fourteen cars, as well as three trucks. At the rear of the garages a complete machine shop was erected and all repairs were made by an expert mechanic and his crew. A concrete building was put up especially for the housing of transformers for the electricity for lights on the stages and the adjacent outdoor lot. . A thousand-acre ranch near Burbank (now Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills) was acquired as a site for out-door action. It was on this ranch that the studio’s growing collection of horses, cow ponies and cattle were held. . On the studio’s twelfth anniversary, about 200 stars and well-known film executives attended and gathered in the old barn, now referred to as the “little grey home in the West,” for the celebration on December 14, 1925.

Those attending included Ethel Wales, who was a casting director, secretary and, when needed, a leading lady; Mabel Van Buren, James Neill, Theodore Roberts, Dustin Farnum and others. Lasky was presented with a bronze tablet which was placed on the spot where the old barn stood. . A month later, Famous Players-Lasky purchased the United Studios a few blocks south on Melrose Avenue and Marathon Street, reportedly for $5 million. Lasky would move their operations from the old Sunset and Vine lot to the new studio on May 1, 1926. “Although our studio in Hollywood has long been considered the best equipped plant in the country,” Lasky said, “it is not big enough to take care of the productions which we have scheduled for this coming year. The United Studios has nine stages and its 26 acres will enable us to expand our activities to take care of the production program we have in mind.” . At the time there were no plans on what to do with the old lot, but Lasky was sentimental about the old barn and the studios beginnings, so he had it picked up and trundled over to the new location.

In addition, the window frame that he used to gaze out from was removed and placed in his new private office. . Top: An aerial view of the new Paramount lot. Note at the top is Hollywood Cemetery and the new Cathedral Mausoleum on the far right. . On the new Paramount lot, the old barn served as the studio library and later as the gymnasium. It became part of the studio’s western set, and a porch and railroad tracks were added outside. It was later used as part of the Bonanza television series set. On December 26, 1956, the barn was dedicated as California Historical Landmark No. 554. . The dedication to declare the barn a California landmark. From left: Samuel Goldwyn, Cecil B. DeMille, Jesse Lasky, Leo Carillo. . . . The barn remained on the lot until October, 1979 when Paramount gave the barn to the Hollywood Historic Trust, a cultural heritage arm of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. Until a decision could be made on what to do with the structure, it sat in the parking lot of Dennis Lidtke’s Palace, just north of Hollywood Boulevard on Vine Street.

For the next three years it sat there becoming an eyesore to the community. Even though money was raised to restore the historic barn, there still was no permanent site to be found. . When Jack Haley, Jr. wanted to film a television special at the Palace, he asked that the barn be moved. The Historic Trust offered to have the barn go to Universal, but preservationists knew it would become just another part of the studios tour. Eventually, Haley and Lidtke backed down on their request and the barn was allowed to stay until a site was found. . The barn on the move. . Meanwhile, Marion Gibbons, co-founder of Hollywood Heritage, and a board member of the Hollywood Chamber, proposed that her organization find the barn a permanent home. In May 1982, the Hollywood Historic Trust signed over the barn to Hollywood Heritage. They found a site on a grassy piece of land across from the Hollywood Bowl on Highland Avenue and signed the lease with the county on September 29 of that year. Gibbons and her volunteers finished painting the barn and getting it ready for removal from the Vine Street parking lot to the Bowl location. When completed, the barn was dedicated in December 1985 as The Hollywood Studio Museum.

. After a fire in September 1996, the museum remained closed until July 1999 when it was renamed the Hollywood Heritage Museum in the Lasky-DeMille Barn. When in Hollywood, be sure to visit the old barn where much of the early history of film took place. The museum is open from Wednesday to Sunday from noon until 4PM. For more information, visit their website at . .

Question: What film studio was founded by Cecil B De Mille and J L Lasky in 1913?
Answer: Paramount