Cecil B. DeMille

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"I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille."
—Gloria Swanson in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard

Cecil B. DeMille's career as a director and producer spans five decades of motion pictures. After directing his first film, the 1914 silent The Squaw Man, DeMille went on to make seventy features, including westerns, adventures, musical comedies and war pictures before his death in 1959. He gave many actors such as Gloria Swanson their start in films, earning him a reputation as a starmaker. A consummate showman, who knew better than anyone how to promote his films and himself, DeMille is best known as the creator of visually lush epics such as The Ten Commandments, The Crusades, Cleopatra and DeMille's own favorite, The King of Kings, as well as sophisticated comedies such as The Affairs of Anatole, The Cheat, and Madame Satan.

Also available for study are clips of DeMille directing a scene from This Day and Age, a promotional short showing D. W. Griffith visiting DeMille on the set of The King of Kings and Paramount newsreel footage featuring DeMille.

Many of Cecil B. DeMille's films are available for study and research at the UCLA Film & Television Archive. With generous assistance from the Cecil B. DeMille Trust, the Archive has restored and preserved several DeMille films, including Cleopatra, The Godless Girl, The King of Kings, The Little American and two versions of The Sign of the Cross; the original 1932 release and the re-edited 1944 version. The DeMille prints that the Archive has preserved have been shown in festivals worldwide.

To arrange onsite research viewing access, please contact the Archive Research and Study Center (ARSC).

The Literary & Arts Communications Archives at Brigham Young University hold the Cecil B. DeMille Archives. Correspondence, production files and photographs are among the items held in the over 1200 boxes of DeMille Materials. Inquiries can be addressed to:

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