Cecil Blount De Mille
Cecil Blount De Mille (1881-1959). US film producer and director. The son of a playwright, he worked as an actor-manager in the theatre before entering the film business with Jesse L. Lasky and Samuel Goldwyn. His The Squaw Man (1914) was the first film made in Hollywood. Later films range from sex comedies to the grandiose biblical epics for which he is best known. These include King of Kings (1927) and The Ten Commandments (1956).
“His success was a world success, and he enjoyed every minute of it…He kept sex, sadism, patriotism, real estate, religion and public relations dancing in midair like jugglers’ balls for fifty years. Agnes de Mille on her uncle Cecil B. de Mille in Speak to Me, Dance with Me”