Long before he became known as the father of Hollywood, Cecil B. DeMille was a young stage actor spending a summer in stock at Elitch Theatre. Born in 1881 in Ashfield, Massachusetts, into a theatrical family — his father Henry Churchill DeMille was a well-known playwright — DeMille grew up immersed in rehearsals, scripts, and stagecraft, and began his own acting career on the New York stage in 1900. In 1905, he came to Denver for the Elitch Gardens summer season, where he appeared in eleven of the theatre’s fifteen productions that year — one of many young actors who cut their teeth on the Elitch stage before finding fame elsewhere.
From those early days in stock theatre, DeMille transitioned into writing and directing, and in 1913 he co-founded the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company with Jesse Lasky and Samuel Goldwyn. The following year he directed The Squaw Man (1914), the first full-length feature film shot in Hollywood — a milestone that helped establish the town as the center of American filmmaking. Over the next four decades, DeMille directed and produced 70 feature films, becoming renowned for lavish, large-scale epics such as The Ten Commandments (1923), The King of Kings (1927), The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), and his final film, a remake of The Ten Commandments (1956).
It is a very long time since I spent a very pleasant summer in stock at the Elitch Gardens. Today in Hollywood I can hardly go anywhere without meeting one or more now rather famous people who…played in what all actors and actresses consider one of the greatest cradles of the drama in American history. As you start a new season, permit an old-time actor in Elitch’s Gardens to wish you a continuance of that success which was so rightfully yours in the early days of the stage. With kindest regards. Cecil B. DeMille.
[Borrillo, T. A. (2012). Denver’s historic Elitch Theatre: A nostalgic journey (a history of its times). Colorado. pp. 64-65.]
“All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.” 45-years before Gloria Swanson spoke that legendary line, the 1905 season at Elitch Theatre included the young actor, Cecil B. DeMille. THEN, in 1967, Swanson would appear at the theatre where DeMille got his start.
Widely regarded as a founding father of American cinema and the most commercially successful producer-director in film history, DeMille’s influence on Hollywood — as a studio co-founder, a pioneer of the epic spectacle, and a mentor to generations of actors — remains difficult to overstate. Fittingly, the Golden Globes’ highest honor for career achievement in entertainment, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, was created in his name and first presented to him in 1952.
Seasons at the Theatre
Productions/Roles at Elitch:
- Appeared in eleven of the fifteen productions staged during the 1905 Elitch Theatre season (too numerous to list individually)
Notable Roles, Awards, and Other Work:
- He is acknowledged as a founding father of American cinema and the most commercially successful producer-director in film history. [wikipedia]
- Co-founded the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company (1913) with Jesse Lasky and Samuel Goldwyn, which later became part of Paramount Pictures
- Directed The Squaw Man (1914), the first full-length feature film shot in Hollywood
- He received his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director for his circus drama The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), which won both the Academy Award for Best Picture and the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama.
- Directed and produced landmark epics including The Ten Commandments (1923), The King of Kings (1927), The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), and The Ten Commandments (1956)
- His last and best known film, The Ten Commandments (1956), also a Best Picture Academy Award nominee, is currently the eighth-highest-grossing film of all time, adjusted for inflation.
- In addition to his Best Picture Awards, he received an Academy Honorary Award for his film contributions, the Palme d’Or (posthumously) for Union Pacific (1939), a DGA Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award.
- He was the first recipient of the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award, which was named in his honor.
Elitch Theatre Connections:
- DeMille’s film, The Ten Commandments, included Elitch Theatre alum: Edward G. Robinson, Vincent Price, Addison Richards, Douglass Dumbrille, and Maude Fealy.
- DeMille worked with Maude Fealy during his summer at the theatre and he later cast her in various roles, including in The Ten Commandments.
- Cecil B. DeMille had a cameo with Elitch Theatre alumna, Gloria Swanson, in the legendary film, Sunset Boulevard, in which Swanson spoke the line: “All right, Mr. DeMille. I’m ready for my close-up.”
Wikipedia Link:
