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 only significant film credit is "Oklahoma!" (1955). She was not invited to recreate her choreography for either "Brigadoon" (1954) or "Carousel" (1956). Nevertheless, her two specials for the "Omnibus" TV series entitled "The Art of Ballet" and "The Art of Choreography" (both televised in 1956) were immediately recognized as landmark attempts to bring serious dance to the attention of a broad public. During his presidency, John F. Kennedy appointed de Mille as a member of the National Advisory Committee on the Arts, the predecessor to the National Endowment for the Arts, of which she was also appointed to by president