Empire of Dreams

On Cecil B. DeMille:
DeMille was stunned when the Catholic League of Decency gave "The Greatest Show on Earth" a B rating, "morally objectionable in part for allpersons" because of the character of the clown who has killed his fatally ill wife rather than watch her suffer. "With these Catholics, a little euthanasia goes a long way" Demille said.

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The shot completed, Brynner took off for Acapulco, leaving behind his friend, the film's doctor: Max Jacobson. Jacobson would become known as the quintessential Dr. Feelgood dispensing his specially concocted brand of pick-me-ups to dozens of celebrity patients, among them DeMille, John F. Kennedy, Alan Jay Lerner, and Tennessee Williams. DeMille had been seeing Jacobson occasion-ally since January 1952. No one seemed to know or care what Jacobson was prescribing, only that it banished fatigue and made sleep optional. Jacobson's manner and thriving medi-cal practice gave him an aura of omnipotence that wasn't to be found in the usual dispensers of pep pills that were pandemic in Hollywood in the 1940s. In fact, Jacobson was injecting customized doses of methedrine, which raises blood pres-sure, relieves fatigue, and induces a touch of euphoria. Jacobson was described by Christopher Plummer as "a cross between Con-rad Veidt and Martin Bormann," and Tennessee Williams would write that the doctor had "a magical atmosphere of understanding and compassion. . . . I don't think he even took my pulse or blood pressure or had me fill out a questionnaire about my medical history. He just looked at me . . . then started concocting the shot, drawing a bit of fluid from one bottle and another and another as my sus-pense and my alarm increased." But the aftermath of the injection was almost miraculous: "I felt as if a concrete sarcophagus about me had sprung open and I was released as a bird on the wing." Williams's response was not unusual; one female patient described the effects of the injections as resembling an orgasm. Jacobson's method was to give two injections, one in the arm, one in the buttocks. "He had a basic formula, and he would vary it according to your size, remembered Eddie Fisher. "He was like Rasputin; he could make you believe anything. He was from Berlin and had a German accent. He could be warm or he could be a tyrant, but he had a tremendous sense of humor with a great grasp of the English language. You were under his spell; he believed he had found the answer to Eternal Youth. He may have meant well in the beginning, but as he saw what power he had he became more destructive and took a lot of chances. A lot of people OD'd because he'd give them too much. I became as addicted to hip' as. I did to the drugs." Richard deMille smelled a rat. "Max Jacobson was what we would now call
guru. He was slightly mysterious, and always had the latest medical information and spoke in a technical language that had a grand sound to it. He was a total charlatan." Henry Noerdlinger, who was more sophisticated than most of the people on DeMille's staff, was on to Jacobson fairly quickly. Noerdlinger remembered going into a tent in Egypt with Jacobson one day, and without a word, the doctor said, "Don't tell me, I know what's wrong with you," whereupon he produced a syringe, had Noerdlinger drop his pants, and gave him a shot. "He was a most peculiar doctor," Noerdlinger would say with commendable European understatement. When Joan Brooskin came down with dengue fever, Jacobson gave her a couple of shots and told her that not only would she get over the fever, she would never have migraines or menstrual cramps again! "When DeMille's energy lagged, he would pick himself up with a shot of Dr. Feelgood's juice," remembered Anthony Quinn. "He was hooked and so was Katherine. She even started taking the children to see Dr. Feelgood." Quinn too began seeing Jacobson for pick-me-ups. DeMille's increasing dependency on the quack, attested to by the unquestioned respect in his correspondence to Jacobson, would be the most obvious manifestation of a naiveté that Donald Hayne had observed: "The latest glib ex-pert to come along can make an impression on DeMille, at least if he claims expertness in a field with which DeMille is not fully familiar." Hayne believed that this curious Achilles' heel in an otherwise strong-minded man derived from DeMille's ego and need for success: "If he has invested time and initial confidence in a man, the man must make good, and DeMille will continue to swear by him as long as there is any chance that he might [make good]; and sometimes, unfortunately, longer." It is unclear whether DeMille's California doctors knew about Jacobson's "treatments," but Cecil's medical problems didn't begin and end with one quack. His cholesterol around this time was a sky-high 400. In a note to himself, Cecil noted that "normal [was] 150-200." Jacobson would attend DeMille off and on until DeMille's death, and the doctor's "treatments" undoubtedly shortened his life. As Anthony Quinn remembered, there were times when "DeMille never knew if he was up or down. He was prone to tremendous mood swings. His en-ergy came and went. It was sometimes difficult for him to talk." Jacobson's medi-cal license would be revoked in 1975.
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Production(on The Ten Commandments) dragged on endlessly with the Golden Calf sequence being a particular trial. One of the extra girls walked up to an assistant director and inquired, "Who do I have to fuck to get off this picture?"
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The Voice of God on Mt. Sinai was dubbed by a small-part actor named Delos Jewkes (from the Music Man and Andy Griffith Show). Getting the voice and effects right was a painstaking process and time began to run out. When New York made inquiries about wrapping it up, DeMille replied, "Tell them we can stop right now and call it the Five Commandments".
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He nudged the Paramount publicity department to pay for granite monoliths of the Ten Commandments to be installed on courthouse lawns, city halls, and public squares wherever the film played. More than four thousand were installed, and one of them became the basis of a Supreme Court decision allowing them on public property, but banning them from courtrooms.