Cecil B. DeMille Christian and Jewish heritage to convey a message of tolerance. "The Crusades" was the first film to show accord between Christians and Muslims. DeMille received more than a dozen awards from Jewish religious and cultural groups, including B’nai B’rith. In 1954, he was seeking approval for a lavish remake of his 1923 silent film "The Ten Commandments". He went before the Paramount board of directors, which was mostly Jewish-American. The members rejected his proposal, even though his last two films, "Samson and Delilah" and "The Greatest Show on Earth", had been record-breaking hits. Adolph Zukor, the chairman of the board,
Agnes de Mille the American Silent Film" (1980) primarily discussing the work of her uncle Cecil B. DeMille. DeMille's 1951 memoir, "Dance to the Piper", was translated into five languages. It was reissued in 2015 by "New York Review Books". De Mille was a lifelong friend of modern dance legend Martha Graham. De Mille, in 1992, published "Martha: The Life and Work of Martha Graham", a biography of Graham that de Mille worked on for more than thirty years. After suffering from a near-fatal stroke, she went on to write five books: "Reprieve" (which outlined the experience), "Who Was Henry George?", "Where the