Cecil Blount DeMille (; August 12, 1881 – January 21, 1959), often known in popular culture as Mr. DeMille, was an American filmmaker and actor. Between 1914 and 1958, he created 70 features including silent and sound films. He is acknowledged as a founding father of American cinema and the most commercially successful producer-director in film history, with many films dominating the box office three or four at a time. His films were distinguished by their epic scale and by his cinematic showmanship. His silent films included social dramas, comedies, Westerns, farces, morality plays, and historical pageants.
Born in Ashfield, Massachusetts, and raised in New York City, DeMille began his career as a stage actor in 1900. He later began to write and direct stage plays, a few with his older brother William de Mille, and some with Jesse L. Lasky, who was then a vaudeville producer. DeMille's first film, The Squaw Man (1914), was the first full-length feature film shot in Hollywood. Its interracial love story was commercially successful, and the film marked Hollywood as the new home of the U.S. film industry. Based on continued film successes, DeMille founded Famous Players-Lasky, which was later reverse merged into Paramount Pictures with Lasky and Adolph Zukor. His first biblical epic, The Ten Commandments (1923), was both a critical and commercial success; it held the Paramount revenue record for 25 years.
DeMille directed The King of Kings (1927), a biography of Jesus, which gained approval for its sensitivity and reached more than 800 million viewers. The Sign of the Cross (1932) is said to be the first sound film to integrate all aspects of cinematic technique. Cleopatra (1934) was his first film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. After more than 30 years in film production, DeMille reached a pinnacle in his career with Samson and Delilah (1949), a biblical epic that became the highest-grossing film of 1950. Along with biblical and historical narratives, he also directed films oriented toward "neo-naturalism", which focused on portraying the laws of man fighting the forces of nature.
DeMille received his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director for his circus drama The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), which won both the Academy Award for Best Picture and the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture — Drama. His 1956 remake of The Ten Commandments became his final and best-known film; also, a Best Picture Academy Award nominee, it is the eighth highest-grossing film of all time, adjusted for inflation. In addition to his Best Picture Awards, DeMille received an Academy Honorary Award for his film contributions, the Palme d'Or (posthumously) for Union Pacific (1939), a DGA Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. He was the first recipient of the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award, which was named in his honor. DeMille's reputation had a renaissance in the 2010s, and his work has influenced numerous other films and directors.
Cecil Blount DeMille was of paternal Dutch ancestry. His surname was spelled de Mil before his grandfather William added an "le" for "visual symmetry".
As an adult, Cecil De Mille adopted the spelling DeMille because he believed it would look better on a marquee, but continued to use de Mille in private life. The family name de Mille was used by his children, Cecilia, John, Richard, and Katherine. Cecil's brother, William, and his daughters, Margaret and Agnes, as well as DeMille's granddaughter, Cecilia de Mille Presley, also used the de Mille spelling.
DeMille was born on August 12, 1881, in a boarding house on Main Street in Ashfield, Massachusetts, where his parents had been vacationing for the summer. On September 1, 1881, the family returned with the newborn DeMille to their flat in New York. DeMille was named after his grandmothers, Cecilia Wolff and Margarete Blount. He was the second of three children of Henry Churchill de Mille (September 4, 1853 – February 10, 1893) and his wife, Matilda Beatrice DeMille (née Samuel; January 30, 1853 – October 8, 1923), known as Beatrice. His older brother, William C. DeMille, was born on July 25, 1878.
Henry de Mille, whose ancestors were of English and Dutch Belgian descent, was a North Carolina-born dramatist, actor, and lay reader in the Episcopal Church. In New York, Henry also taught English at Columbia College (now Columbia University). He worked as a playwright, administrator, and faculty member during the early years of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, established in New York City in 1884. Henry de Mille frequently collaborated with David Belasco in playwriting; their best-known collaborations included "The Wife", "Lord Chumley", "The Charity Ball", and "Men and Women".
Cecil B. DeMille's mother, Beatrice, a literary agent and scriptwriter, was the daughter of German Jews. She had emigrated from England with her parents in 1871 when she was 18; the newly arrived family settled in Brooklyn, New York, where they maintained a middle-class, English-speaking household.
DeMille's parents met as members of a music and literary society in New York. Henry was a tall, red-headed student. Beatrice was intelligent, educated, forthright, and strong-willed. They married on July 1, 1876, despite Beatrice's parents' objections due to the young couple's differing religions; Beatrice converted to Episcopalianism.
DeMille watched his father and Belasco rehearse plays. He attended a lunch with his father and actor Edwin Booth. As a child, DeMille created a character named Champion Driver based on Robin Hood.
His father and his family had lived in Washington, North Carolina, until Henry built a three-story Victorian-style house for his family in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey; named this estate "Pamlico". John Philip Sousa was a friend of the family, and DeMille recalled throwing mud balls in the air so neighbor Annie Oakley could practice her shooting. DeMille's sister, Agnes, was born on April 23, 1891; his mother nearly did not survive the birth. Agnes died on February 11, 1894, from spinal meningitis.
DeMille's parents operated a private school in Pompton Lakes and attended Christ Episcopal Church. DeMille recalled that this church was the place where he visualized the story of his 1923 version of The Ten Commandments.
On January 8, 1893, at age 40, Henry de Mille died suddenly from typhoid fever, leaving Beatrice with three children. To provide for her family, she opened the Henry C. de Mille School for Girls in her home in February 1893. The school aimed to teach young women to properly understand and fulfill their duties to themselves, their home, and their country. Beatrice had "enthusiastically supported" Henry's theatrical aspirations. She later became the second female play broker on Broadway. On Henry's deathbed, he told his wife that he did not want his sons to become playwrights. DeMille's mother sent him to Pennsylvania Military College (now Widener University) in Chester, Pennsylvania, at the age of 15. He fled the school to join the Spanish–American War, but failed to meet the age requirement. At the military college, even though his grades were average, he reportedly excelled in personal conduct.
DeMille attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (tuition-free due to his father's service to the academy). He graduated in 1900, and for graduation, his performance was in the play The Arcady Trail. In the audience was Charles Frohman, who cast DeMille in his play Hearts Are Trumps, DeMille's Broadway debut.
DeMille was an active Freemason and member of Prince of Orange Lodge #16 in New York City.
Charles Frohman, Constance Adams, and David Belasco
Cecil B. DeMille began his career as an actor on stage in 1900 with the theatrical company of Charles Frohman. He debuted on February 21, 1900, in the play Hearts Are Trumps at New York's Garden Theater. In 1901, DeMille starred in productions of A Repentance, To Have and to Hold, and Are You a Mason? At age 21, he married Constance Adams on August 16, 1902, at Adams's father's home in East Orange, New Jersey. The wedding party was small. Beatrice DeMille's family did not attend. Simon Louvish suggests that this was to conceal DeMille's partial Jewish heritage. Adams was 29 years old at the time of the marriage. They had met in a theater in Washington, D.C. while they were both acting in Hearts Are Trumps.