Cecil B Demille

FILM director Cecil B. DeMille, a dominant figure in Hollywood for decades, lived in this Laughlin Park estate for more than 40 years. DeMille liked spectacle, which he knew drew large audiences, especially to biblical films. When released in 1927, his film "The King of Kings" was seen by an estimated 800 million people. A lucky few saw DeMille's home when it was open to the public to benefit charity in 1989. The walled and gated property was bought in 1996 by the current owners, who hired an architectural firm to oversee a renovation of the house and grounds.

Joe Harper was, you might say, bred to be in horse racing -- or the movie business. His mother, Cecilia, was riding horses almost before she could walk; his grandfather was legendary filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille. Harper, president of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, which runs the state-owned racetrack, recalls a story about his mother and grandfather when she was 6 and he was making a silent western movie. One scene called for the actors to ride horses down a hill.

Dec. 29, 1922: Film director Cecil B. DeMille had high hopes for his new racing boat, the Miss Cecilia. But when he took the boat out in Los Angeles Harbor for its maiden trip to compete in the Garfield "Gar" Wood championship motorboat races, it "burned at the starting line," The Times reported. The accident began with "a backfire which exploded the tanks under the seat," the newspaper said. "DeMille and his mechanician, Al Fear, literally were blasted out of the boat.

In her Nov. 30 column on the TV movie "The Reagans," Patt Morrison asks, "When did the nation begin letting moviemakers teach history?" The answer: In the late '30s, when the Encyclopedia Britannica, in a joint venture with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, began distributing 16-millimeter prints of historical shorts and excerpts from historical films to schools. According to Kevin Brownlow in "The Parade's Gone By," beginning with D.W. Griffith, the makers of historical films did voluminous research to ensure their films were as historically accurate as possible, given the knowledge and what was considered acceptable for depiction at the time.

Regarding Home of the Week, Aug. 24: I'd like to point out that the former W.C. Fields house in Los Feliz has not only "Seen Some Lively Times" but some deadly times too. In March 1941, Cecil B. DeMille's grandson, Christopher Quinn, 2 1/2 years old, the son of actors Anthony and Katherine DeMille Quinn, slipped out of his grandparents' home and apparently toddled across DeMille Drive to the house of neighbor Fields, where he was later found drowned...

Last year I directed my first feature film, a low-budget production that cost between $200,000 and $2 million, depending on who's asking. My role, as I quickly learned, was to put out fires. In a 60-second period I was once asked which wall of the bedroom should be movable for the reverse-angle shot in scene 87, which college a character with only one line had attended and whether the stripper's costume should be red leather or something "more tasteful."

Nestled amid the arid, rugged wilderness of Little Tujunga Canyon are some of Hollywood's greatest treasures, movie set leftovers that have survived the same real-life disasters--fires, floods and earthquakes--that they have posed for in their creators' biblical epics. These relics from award-winning productions are a throwback to the days when studios churned out films with gargantuan sets that matched moguls' aspirations--a heavy iron gate from "King of Kings," a lavish 1927 Cecil B.

Katherine DeMille Quinn, 83, daughter of film director Cecil B. DeMille and an actress who later married actor Anthony Quinn. Her 15-year film career included parts in "Call of the Wild," "Unconquered" and "The Gamblers." Born in Canada in 1911, she was placed in a Hollywood orphanage when her parents died and was adopted by DeMille. She and Quinn married in 1936. She ended her acting career by 1950 to care for their four children. The couple divorced in 1963. Mrs.

Well, if no one else has the guts to admit it, I loved Irwin Allen. I grew up watching "The Time Tunnel," "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" and that great-spirited show, "Lost in Space." I was truly saddened to hear of his departing. Allen's early 1970s disaster epics, "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno" brought back the spectacle and craftsmanship not seen in Hollywood for numerous years. Irwin Allen, like Cecil B. DeMille before him, was not known for subtlety but was pure showman and I, for one, loved it when he put on a show.