Cecil B. DeMille

Cecil B. DeMille (1881–1959) was one of the motion picture industry's most prominent and successful pioneers. He began his career as an actor and playwright, often working with his brother William and producer David Belasco. In 1913 he formed a partnership with Jesse Lasky and Samuel Goldfish (later Goldwyn) called the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company. The partners traveled to California to film the first feature-length motion picture produced in Hollywood, The Squaw Man (1914). The film, co-directed by DeMille, was a critical and financial success. The Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company soon merged with Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Company and ultimately became Paramount Pictures, where DeMille became a leading producer.

By the 1920s DeMille became known for a series of successful, sophisticated sex comedies, many starring Gloria Swanson. In the 1930s and 1940s DeMille produced and directed memorable epic action-adventure films such as The Sign of the Cross (1932), Cleopatra (1934), The Crusades (1935) and Samson and Delilah (1949). In the 1950s DeMille made two of his best remembered films: The Greatest Show on Earth (winner of the 1952 Best Picture Academy Award) and The Ten Commandments (a 1956 Best Picture nominee).