Q 01/05

DeMille was born in a Massachusetts boarding house where his parents were escaping the summer heat of which home city?

A) Boston

B) New York

C) Philadelphia

D) Washington, D.C.

Answer · why

B) New York

New York: his father had brought four private pupils along to Ashfield to tutor in Latin, Greek and mathematics, and the family was back in the city b...

Q 02/05

Which director says the first film he ever saw was DeMille's 1952 circus epic The Greatest Show on Earth?

A) Martin Scorsese

B) George Lucas

C) Steven Spielberg

D) Francis Ford Coppola

Answer · why

C) Steven Spielberg

Steven Spielberg thought his father was taking him to a real circus and was angry to find only a film; its train wreck stayed with him, and as a boy h...

Q 03/05

Which cult director's 2000 comedy Cecil B. Demented takes its title from a pun on DeMille's name?

A) Tim Burton

B) David Lynch

C) John Waters

D) Kevin Smith

Answer · why

C) John Waters

John Waters's comedy follows a guerrilla director who kidnaps a Hollywood star and forces her to act in his underground movie; Patricia Hearst, hersel...

Q 04/05

DeMille's father wrote plays with which Broadway impresario, whose Madame Butterfly became a Puccini opera?

A) Charles Frohman

B) Florenz Ziegfeld

C) David Belasco

D) George M. Cohan

Answer · why

C) David Belasco

David Belasco later hired the young DeMille to write a play, then staged it in 1911 as his own The Return of Peter Grimm and denied him the author's c...

Q 05/05

DeMille recalled tossing mud balls in the air as a boy for which Wild West show star, a neighbor, to shoot?

A) Calamity Jane

B) Buffalo Bill

C) Annie Oakley

D) Wild Bill Hickok

Answer · why

C) Annie Oakley

Annie Oakley was, by his account, a neighbor of the family in New Jersey; DeMille later put Buffalo Bill, Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok on screen...