GROSS/43 1952 BONUS - ”When is that bald-headed son-of-a-bitch going to call lunch?”
Cecil B. DeMille remembered.
Hollywood: the Oral History is a thing of beauty. 700 pages of verbatim anecdotes, biographical notes, complaints, rebuttals, gags and what are almost certainly tall tales from hundreds of Hollywood actors, technicians, directors, producers, creatives and administrators. An absolutely gripping labour of love by film historians Sam Wasson and Jeanine Basinger. I hope they won’t mind me bringing you this terrific chunk of quotes about Cecil B. DeMille - mostly from other film directors - as a companion to my post about The Greatest Show on Earth.
Next: Peter Pan.
ALAN DWAN: I never admired DeMille at all. I think he’s a great showman, but as a director … no. He was a garish type, a big, big canvas fellow. He was a Barnum & Bailey guy.
CHARLTON HESTON: DeMille was very difficult. He was not a tyrant, but he had very firm control over the set. And nothing escaped him. He never raised his voice, but he could be very tough on assistant directors and propmen and people like that if they didn’t provide what he had expected. I once said to someone, after he had chewed out a propman, “Mr. DeMille’s pretty tough.” And the guy said, “No, he’s not tough. He just expects a good day’s work. A very good day’s work.” And that’s what he got from everyone.
TAY GARNETT: In the industry, among the writers, directors, and producers, DeMille was never really highly regarded. He was greatly respected for his showmanship, but as a director, he was considered old-fashioned, a little hammy, and quite heavy-handed. These were the general opinions of the professional picture makers. But DeMille knew what the public wanted better than anybody in the business. He consistently made great big money earners. His pictures were loaded with top-star casts. He spent money like it was ready for the incinerator. Never had there been anyone in this business who consistently made as much money with his pictures—until Disney came along. DeMille’s silent films are magnificent, superb pieces of craftsmanship. Just magnificent. He’s the greatest, really.
MITCHELL LEISEN: You know how many times I was fired by DeMille? Oh, oh, quite often! But I owe DeMille everything I ever learned about making pictures. Everything. Everybody adored him that ever worked for him. He might raise holy hell on the set, but it would be with a propman or with me or with somebody, but never with the star. But what he would do is put the fear into the actor by criticizing somebody else. But the minute we walked off the stage, he couldn’t have been more charming. He’d even apologize for blowing his stack or something: “There was nothing personal in that.” I’d say, “I know. Don’t worry, I’ve been with you long enough to know that.” He had very positive ideas of what he wanted. As I said, most of it was in capital letters, neon tubes. You had to learn to think as he thought.
RAY RENNAHAN: DeMille was difficult. He was the boss. It was his way, and you had to hand it to the man, he was almost a miracle worker with some actors and everything. He had a sarcastic manner, but I think a lot of it was acting. I don’t think he was sincere about it, because I was with him on quite a number of pictures. He’d run the dailies at his house over in Los Feliz. He had a projection room there, and the whole crew would go in, cameramen, art directors, costume people, assistant directors. It was a little show every night. Everyone was welcome, but he liked to be difficult. He’d pick his person.
HAL ROSSON: DeMille was a delight to work with! He always had time enough to tell you what he was trying to do. He had a scheme of what he wanted, and nothing was ever too monstrous in size for him to accomplish. My sister, Gladys Rosson, was a stenographer, and she got the job of being C.B.’s private secretary. She was with him for thirty-nine years. He was very loyal.
HENRY HATHAWAY: Everybody worked with DeMille sooner or later. He hired a lot of people. He had one guy who’d grab the megaphone when he let go of it and another guy to be there with a chair so he could sit down without looking behind him.
MERVYN LEROY: I was part of a camera crew on one of DeMille’s pictures in the early days. And Cecil B. DeMille always said that I was the first one who invented soft focus … because I got everything out of focus.
RIDGEWAY CALLOW: From the point of view of assistant directors, he was indeed a tyrant. He was the most sarcastic man I have ever worked for, and I did several pictures with him in the capacity of “herder.” In the early days of the picture industry—that is, before the formation of the Directors Guild—whenever they filmed mob scenes, “herders” were employed to help out the few assistant directors assigned to the show. Although termed “herders,” they were actually extra assistant directors for crowd control. In productions with complicated action of the extras, one herder was employed for every hundred extras. The biggest use of herders in those lush days, was, of course, DeMille, who specialized in epics with “casts of thousands.” DeMille was a master in mob control. He demanded complete silence when he spoke, so much so that one could hear a pin drop. He was addressing his mob one day when he caught an extra talking to her friend in the background. “When I’m talking, young lady, what do you have to say that’s so important?” The girl in question was a well-known extra by the name of Sugar Geise, an ex-showgirl and a great wit. Bravely, she spoke up. “I only said to my friend, ‘When is that bald-headed son of a bitch going to call lunch?’” There were a few apprehensive seconds of silence. Then Mr. DeMille yelled, “LUNCH!” So he did have a sense of humor.
MITCHELL LEISEN: He was a very religious man on Sunday … whenever he wasn’t on his boat with his mistress. The way I met DeMille and was hired by him is typical of the silent era. Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn were very good friends of my family, and Ted asked me if I’d like to go out to dinner one night. I sat next to a very charming woman [Jeanie MacPherson, DeMille’s key collaborator for more than twenty-five years]. I didn’t know who she was, being fresh out of college and just out here for a vacation, actually. She said she’d like to have me meet Mr. Cecil B. DeMille. Well, I’d been raised on all the DeMille silent spectacles, and I was so thrilled. When he met me, he said, “Miss MacPherson tells me about the wonderful work you do. I’d like to have you come and work for me.” So I thought, All right, it would be a good chance to see the inside of a studio, so I went. DeMille was making The Admirable Crichton (renamed Male and Female because he got several letters from exhibitors saying they didn’t want another naval picture and who was this Admiral Crichton?). DeMille wanted some costumes designed, and I’d never designed costumes in my life. As I said, I was out here on a vacation, but what the hell. I went through Ted’s library of art books and went to the public library and a few other things, and I made three sketches. DeMille said he’d give me $100 apiece for them and a year’s contract for $100 per week. I signed a piece of paper, and then I found out I not only had to design these three things, I had to do fifty more, and I also had to make them! I went back to DeMille and said I was sorry but I needed to go back to Chicago, where I had another job. He said, “You have a contract with me.” I said, “Yes, Mr. DeMille, but I have a job in Chicago. This is just movies.” He said, “Well, it may be just movies to you, but it’s still a legitimate contract and you are under contract to me.” And I was. And that’s where I started. And I’ve been out here ever since.
EDITH HEAD: On the big DeMille films, we would work sometimes fifteen, sometimes eighteen months in in preparation. But remember, I was one of six designers on those films. We would have designers who did nothing but the men’s uniforms or the clothes for the charioteers, and someone else would do the dancing girls. There were designers for specific periods … and DeMille did not want accurate clothes. His costumes were not academically correct to the historic period. He wanted what he wanted. A lot of people have been rather cruel about the DeMille attitudes toward fashion, but it was what DeMille wanted, and the public got it and loved it, and that was all he cared about.
MITCHELL LEISEN: You see, DeMille had no nuances. Everything was in neon lights six feet tall: LUST. REVENGE. And so forth and so on. De-Mille loved wild imagination. I don’t think anybody ever wore a dress like the white peacock costume I made for Miss Gloria Swanson in Male and Female. Remember, I did that crazy sketch, and then he wanted me to make it! I’d never made a dress in my life before, and the head of the wardrobe department at that time was not about to have me making anything. So she stuck me in a little room about the size of a table with a bunch of women to help me. The train on that dress is batik. The peacock feathers are all painted in with wax, and it was dyed a pale green so you saw the white feathers on this train. Then it was embroidered with pearls for the eyes. You paint it with wax. Then you dye it and you press the wax out of the material, and it leaves the pattern. Plain, ordinary beeswax. You have to be very careful not to crack it, or you’ll get a crackle effect. So that was how the dress was made, for the first time. Gloria was a very small person, very short. To give her height, I had wooden shoes made, which were Babylonian bulls standing on four legs. The wings came up on the sides of her feet, and that’s what she wore.
TAY GARNETT: Originally, there was an intense rivalry between the Griffith faction and the DeMille faction, but Griffith was nearly nonexistent by the time DeMille had achieved his enormous stature. Griffith had slipped badly by the end of the silent era, but DeMille never did slip. He was a highly intelligent man with the most fantastic sense of what the public wanted of any man I ever knew. And he gave it to them constantly. I don’t think he ever had a flop. TEETE CARLE: DeMille had his own publicity staff. He had his own personnel all the way from go. He was savvy. If you want to set up a big big picture for sale, I would say just let him do the whole thing. I was his publicity director and was instrumental in bringing in the whole publicity for DeMille on The Ten Commandments [1956 remake]. DeMille had two unit men to write copy, a girl who did nothing but promote the religious material, and all the public relations such as women’s clubs and things like that, and he had an art editor and a flock of secretaries—it was all his own special publicity staff. Not that of the studio. They were all on Ten Commandments, and I have to tell you that Gone with the Wind really didn’t have as complete and detailed and in-depth campaign that Ten Commandments did because Ten Commandments not only had the campaign for the picture as a picture, but it went into the uncovering of hidden audiences or new audiences or lost audiences. In other words, DeMille was trying to attract people who had long since stopped going to the motion pictures because of age or whatever. DeMille knew if he was going to have to bring in the ultimate in money, he couldn’t just depend on people who were going to the movies regularly. He had to go out and dig up these other people.
MERIAN C. COOPER: Oh, he was a great showman, DeMille was. A great showman.
RIDGEWAY CALLOW: Well, in the end, DeMille is a very famous name. And there’s that classic Hollywood joke.
RUDY BEHLMER: I first heard it about the time DeMille’s remake of Ten Commandments was released. It concerned an imaginary situation supposedly taking place while DeMille was filming the parting of the Red Sea. There were hundreds of extras, special-effects rigs to shake the earth, dump tanks to unleash thousands of gallons of water on the extras, et cetera. DeMille explained that three cameras were covering the scene, since it would be too costly to shoot it again. Then DeMille yelled, “Action!” All hell broke loose. The ground shook, the water came down in torrents. The effect was superb. After the chaos had subsided, DeMille checked with the number one cameraman: his lens had cracked from some hurtling debris. The number two cameraman was so excited he forgot to take off the lens cap. The number three cameraman—way up high on a tower—upon being asked how the action was for him yelled down…
RIDGEWAY CALLOW: “Ready when you are, C.B.!”
RICHARD SCHICKEL: Say what you will, Cecil B. DeMille is a Hollywood legend.
Gloria Swanson’s autiobiography, Swanson on Swanson, published when she was 81, is another really splendid source of DeMille stories. DeMille put Swanson under contract for Famous Players-Lasky in 1918, for a string of prurient melodramas, and she was devoted to him for the rest of her career.
Billy Wilder’s 1950 satire/pastiche/comedy/noir Sunset Blvd., although we think of it as a kind of melancholy look back on the early years, was released in 1950. Swanson and DeMille were essentially mid-career (although Swanson wasn’t getting much work at the time). DeMille’s biggest movies were yet to come.
Steve- I love how one man can be described both as “difficult” and a “delight.” A great reminder that there are many layers of greatness. Hope you’re well this week? Cheers, -Thalia