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,
Henry Churchill de Mille was survived by his wife and children, though his young daughter would fall victim to spinal meningitis just two years later. Two months after de Mille died his widow founded the Henry C. De Mille School for Girls in Pompton and opened an office on Broadway becoming only the second woman playbroker (facilitator) in America working with playwrights, producers and actors. Today de Mille's legacy probably lies more with what influence he had over his sons. Within a decade or so of his death, de Mille's style of play writing went out of vogue and his works were largely forgotten.