Yes, Mr. DeMille: At the Right Hand of a Hollywood God

Our first meeting was in the winter of 1946.

There was nothing epic in his manner. His voice did not
sound like thunder from Mount Olympus. He stood at the door
to his office, a foot propping it open, with a warm, interested,
almost shy smile.

"Please come in."

It wasn't what one might have expected by way of greeting,
no outburst ripping open the gates of Hollywood or flaying the
souls of extras. A warmth filled the visitor, a feeling that he was
the most important person DeMille was to see that day. Was this
the legendary DeMille, the bruising, blistering Alexander of the
sound stages, who practiced deliberate cruelties on players and
his staff out of sheer love of exhibitionism? Was this the cine-
matic disciple whose fervor for the Bible had sent him shinnying
like an enraged Crusader up the walls of a cardboard Antioch;
whose Biblical dramas woven with human passion were pace
described as "a fraud that enabled immorality to hide behind
the protection of the Holy Book"?