Cecil B. DeMille |
November 7, 1947
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Cecil B. DeMille
Film Director and Producer, The Squaw Man, The Virginian, The Ten Commandments, Union Pacific, Unconquered; Screenwriter; Co-founder, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Club Introduction
Now, today our speaker belongs to that industry which has added such words to our vocabulary as stupendous, terrific, supercolossal and paramonumental. I almost didn't get that last one. He has been a theatrical producer, is a playwright, and I was going to say that he had been an actor, but he recalled to me that famous expression by Sarah Bernhardt in which she said that an actress was a little more than a woman and an actor, a little less than a man. So I'm not going to mention the subject.
In 1918, he was the organizer and president of the Mercury Aviation Company of Hollywood, which was the first aviation company to carry passengers on regular flights. He has been identified with the motion picture business since 1913. In that year, he rented half a barn in what was then the village of Hollywood and filmed The Squaw Man. Among other pictures that he has produced in addition to those mentioned in The Commonwealth are The Sign of the Cross, Union Pacific, The Plainsman and The Unconquered.
He's been decorated with the Order of the Holy Sepulcher and has been awarded the degrees of Doctor of Literature and Doctor of Fine Arts. He has demonstrated that he has the courage of his convictions and fights valiantly for the principles in which he believes. His subject: the motion picture and international relations. The speaker: Cecil B. DeMille.
Generously funded by:
Tom Campbell
Dee Dee Myers