Biography
Cecil B. DeMille was an American film director and producer. Born Cecil Blount DeMille on 12 August 1881 in Ashfield, Massachusetts, he died on 21 January 1959 in Hollywood, California. With Jesse L. Lasky and Samuel Goldwyn, he co-founded the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company in 1913; the company later became part of Paramount Pictures. He directed his first feature, The Squaw Man, in 1914.
DeMille directed more than seventy feature films between 1914 and 1956. He is best known for large-scale epics including The Ten Commandments (1923 and 1956), The King of Kings (1927), Samson and Delilah (1949), The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) and Cleopatra (1934). He also directed Sunset Boulevard (1950) star Gloria Swanson in earlier films and appeared as himself in that production.
From 1936 to 1945 he hosted and directed the Lux Radio Theatre. He was a founder of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
