Cecil Blount DeMille ( August 12, 1881 – January 21, 1959 ) was an American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films.

DeMille was born in Ashfield, Massachusetts while his parents were vacationing there, and grew up in Washington, North Carolina.

While he is known as DeMille ( his nom d ' oeuvre ), his family name was Dutch and is usually spelled " de Mil ".

His mother was Matilda Beatrice DeMille ( née Samuel ), whose parents were both of German Jewish heritage.

Cecil B. DeMille was known for being an instrumental catalyst for the rising status of many a struggling or unknown actor.

To ensure that Cromwell's character used current slang, DeMille asked Horace Hahn to read the script and comment ( at the time, Hahn was senior class president at Los Angeles High School ).

( DeMille remarked that Mature was " 100 % yellow ").

DeMille was one of the first directors in Hollywood to become a celebrity in his own right.

Also representative of his penchant for the spectacular was the 1952 production of The Greatest Show on Earth which gave DeMille an Oscar for best picture and a nomination for best director.

In 1949 or 1950, DeMille was recruited by Allen Dulles and Frank Wisner to serve on the board of the anti-communist National Committee for a Free Europe, the public face of the organization that oversaw the Radio Free Europe service.

Near the end of his life, DeMille began pre-production work on a film biography of Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, the founder of the Scout Movement and had asked David Niven to star in the film, which was never made.

Because of illness, he asked his son-in-law, actor Anthony Quinn, to direct a remake of his 1938 film The Buccaneer ; although DeMille served as executive producer, he was unhappy with Quinn's work and tried unsuccessfully to remedy the situation.

Though DeMille was respected by his peers, his individual films were often criticized by them.

In 1955 and 1957, DeMille was awarded The George Eastman Award, given by George Eastman House for distinguished contribution to the art of film.

Cecil B. DeMille was a leading figure in the increased use of the Insert, and by 1918 he had reached the point of including about 9 Inserts in every 100 shots in The Whispering Chorus.

The first of these was Cecil B. DeMille, whose films, such as The Cheat ( 1915 ), brought out the moral dilemmas facing their characters in a more subtle way than Griffith.

DeMille was also in closer touch with the reality of contemporary American life.

In 2003 at the Golden Globes, Hackman was honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award for his " outstanding contribution to the entertainment field.

He was next employed as a prop boy and general assistant on an unspecified film directed by Cecil B. DeMille ( Hawks never named the film in later interviews and DeMille made five films roughly in that time period ).

The play was written by William C. deMille, whose brother, the then-unknown Cecil B. DeMille, also appeared in the cast.

David Lean also admitted he was deeply indebted to Ingram, and MGM studio chief Dore Schary once listed the top creative people in Hollywood as D. W. Griffith, Ingram, Cecil B. DeMille, and Erich von Stroheim ( in declining order of importance ).

The film was produced, directed, and narrated by Cecil B. DeMille, and won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Lucille Ball was offered Gloria Grahame's role in the picture by DeMille, but dropped out when she discovered she was pregnant with her first child, Lucie Arnaz.

Despite Paramount's losses, DeMille would, however, give the studio some relief and create his most successful film at Paramount, a 1956 remake of his 1923 film The Ten Commandments.

" Once DeMille heard his baritone voice, however, he hired him to do voice-overs.

In 1954, Secretary of the Air Force Harold E. Talbott sought out DeMille for help in designing the cadet uniforms at the newly established United States Air Force Academy.

In the mid-1950s, DeMille oversaw the development of a family of distinctive uniforms designed for use by the cadets, at the new Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs CO, for which he received the Defense Department's Exceptional Service Award.

The former film building at Chapman University in Orange, California is named in honor of DeMille.

* 1981 – Cecil B. DeMille Award at Golden Globes.

Senator Joseph McCarthy was pursuing Communists at the time, and Cecil B. DeMille was one of his supporters ; another Best Picture nominee, High Noon, was produced by Carl Foreman, who would soon be on the Hollywood blacklist.

In 1970, Crawford was presented with the Cecil B. DeMille Award by John Wayne at the Golden Globes, which was telecast from the Coconut Grove at The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

After a while, Norma considers her script complete, and sends it to Cecil B. DeMille at Paramount and waits for his answer.

" Norma makes a short speech at how happy she is to be back making a film, and delivers the film's most famous line: " All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.

Ashfield is the birthplace of prominent director Cecil B. DeMille ( whose parents were vacationing in the town at the time ), Alvan Clark, nineteenth century astronomer and telescope maker, and William S. Clark, member of the Massachusetts Senate and third president of Massachusetts Agricultural College ( now UMass-Amherst ).

Fields was listed in the 1940 census as single and living at 2015 DeMille Drive ( Cecil B. DeMille lived at 2000, the only other address on the street ).

Director DeMille had a cameo in Billy Wilder's film Sunset Boulevard in a scene where the character of Norma Desmond meets with the director on a film set at Paramount studios.

At her career peak in the early 1920s, Murray, along with such other notable Hollywood personalities as Cecil B. DeMille, Douglas Fairbanks, William S. Hart, Jesse L. Lasky, Harold Lloyd, Hal Roach, Donald Crisp, Conrad Nagel and Irving Thalberg was a member of the board of trustees at the Motion Picture & Television Fund-A charitable organization that offers assistance and care to those in the motion picture and television industries without resources.

Besides filming at Paramount Studios, De Carlo accompanied DeMille and the rest of the crew to Egypt, where several exterior shots were filmed.

The premier of the movie was held at the Saban Theatre, the former Fox Wilshire Theatre, in Beverly Hills, California, on November 4, 1953, with the attendance of Humphrey Bogart, Cecil B. DeMille, Robert Mitchum, Lucille Ball, Rock Hudson, Debbie Reynolds, Shelley Winters, Mitzi Gaynor, Jeffrey Hunter, Michael Rennie, among other celebrities.

To ensure that Cromwell's character used current slang, DeMille asked high school student Horace Hahn to read the script and comment ( at the time, Hahn was senior class president at Los Angeles High School ).

Cecil B. DeMille directing

A consummate professional, he was highly regarded by the studios and was sought out by Cecil B. DeMille, Frank Capra, Hal Roach and other Hollywood directing greats.