Cecil B. DeMille

The story goes that Cecil B was directing one of his extravagant crowd scenes for the "Ten Commandments". There were literally thousands of extras, hundreds of animals and several cameras he was trying to wrangle to get the shot he wanted.

Toward the back of the large crowd two women caught his eye. They were whispering to each other and paying no attention to DeMille while he was setting the shot. DeMille stopped what he was doing, took his bull horn and yelled at the girls, "Excuse me Ladies. I am setting a very difficult shot here, it is costing thousands of dollars and the two of you are paying no attention. What could possibly be so important an issue between the two of you that it would take precedents over my production?"

The two girls made a gesture of contrition and stopped talking. But DeMille continued, "Tell us. Tell the whole crew what was so important that you had to say it in the middle of my shot?" Again the girls waved him off with a sorrowful motion of apology, but this was not good enough for the great DeMille. He clicked his bull horn on again and said, "No, no, I insist that you tell us all right here and now what you were saying to your friend...."

One of the girls sheepishly looked around and finally said back to DeMille. "I just asked my girlfriend, here, when she thought the old Bastard would call lunch."

DeMille glared at the woman, thought for a moment, picked up the bull horn, clicked it on and yelled. "Lunch."

As you were,
Jay