1953 : DEMILLE WINS OSCAR:
On March 19, 1953, legendary filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille wins the only
Academy Award of his career when The Greatest Show on Earth takes home
an Oscar for Best Picture. The film, a big-budget extravaganza about
circus life, starred Charlton Heston, Betty Hutton, and Cornel Wilde.
Born in Ashfield, Massachusetts, in 1881, DeMille came from a
theatrical family and studied acting at the American Academy of
Dramatic Arts. In 1913, hoping to exploit the fledgling movie
industry, he joined with Jesse Lasky, Samuel Goldwyn, and Arthur Freed
in forming the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company, which later grew
into Paramount Pictures. He produced and co-directed a silent western
called The Squaw Man (1914), which at six reels was the first
feature-length film made in the small town of Hollywood, California.
During the next few years, DeMille was responsible for a string of
commercially successful movies and became the archetype of the
Hollywood director as a dashing and assertive figure. After World War
I, he made comedies with sexual themes, such as Male and Female (1919)
and The Affairs of Anatol (1921). These and other Hollywood movies of
the postwar period led to a series of scandals in which the industry
was forced to defend itself against charges of immorality. In
response, DeMille made the The Ten Commandments (1923), which combined
a modern-day morality tale with an elaborate biblical flashback. Three
years later, he released The King of Kings (1927), a biblical epic
that was seen by hundreds of millions of people.
Having found a winning genre, he made a series of lavish biblical and
historical epics in the 1930s, including The Sign of the Cross (1932),
the exotic Cleopatra (1934), and The Crusades (1935). Henceforth,
DeMille concentrated on big-budget spectacles, and his last three
films--Samson and Delilah (1949), The Greatest Show on Earth (1952),
and a second version of The Ten Commandments (1956)--were all
progressively bigger than anything he had done before. In all, he made
some 70 films.
Although rarely critically acclaimed, his spectacles attracted vast
audiences, and he was a dominant figure in Hollywood for decades. His
only Oscar was for The Greatest Show on Earth, but that year he also
received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award from the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 1950, he had received a special
Academy Award for "37 years of brilliant showmanship." In 1952, the
Golden Globe Awards introduced the Cecil B. DeMille Award for
outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment. The first
Cecil B. DeMille Award went, appropriately, to Cecil B. DeMille. He
died in 1959.
history.com/tdih.do
Academy Award of his career when The Greatest Show on Earth takes home
an Oscar for Best Picture. The film, a big-budget extravaganza about
circus life, starred Charlton Heston, Betty Hutton, and Cornel Wilde.
Born in Ashfield, Massachusetts, in 1881, DeMille came from a
theatrical family and studied acting at the American Academy of
Dramatic Arts. In 1913, hoping to exploit the fledgling movie
industry, he joined with Jesse Lasky, Samuel Goldwyn, and Arthur Freed
in forming the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company, which later grew
into Paramount Pictures. He produced and co-directed a silent western
called The Squaw Man (1914), which at six reels was the first
feature-length film made in the small town of Hollywood, California.
During the next few years, DeMille was responsible for a string of
commercially successful movies and became the archetype of the
Hollywood director as a dashing and assertive figure. After World War
I, he made comedies with sexual themes, such as Male and Female (1919)
and The Affairs of Anatol (1921). These and other Hollywood movies of
the postwar period led to a series of scandals in which the industry
was forced to defend itself against charges of immorality. In
response, DeMille made the The Ten Commandments (1923), which combined
a modern-day morality tale with an elaborate biblical flashback. Three
years later, he released The King of Kings (1927), a biblical epic
that was seen by hundreds of millions of people.
Having found a winning genre, he made a series of lavish biblical and
historical epics in the 1930s, including The Sign of the Cross (1932),
the exotic Cleopatra (1934), and The Crusades (1935). Henceforth,
DeMille concentrated on big-budget spectacles, and his last three
films--Samson and Delilah (1949), The Greatest Show on Earth (1952),
and a second version of The Ten Commandments (1956)--were all
progressively bigger than anything he had done before. In all, he made
some 70 films.
Although rarely critically acclaimed, his spectacles attracted vast
audiences, and he was a dominant figure in Hollywood for decades. His
only Oscar was for The Greatest Show on Earth, but that year he also
received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award from the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 1950, he had received a special
Academy Award for "37 years of brilliant showmanship." In 1952, the
Golden Globe Awards introduced the Cecil B. DeMille Award for
outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment. The first
Cecil B. DeMille Award went, appropriately, to Cecil B. DeMille. He
died in 1959.
history.com/tdih.do
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