The Bible in film religious epics produced as vehicles for its biggest stars. "Samson and Delilah" was the biggest moneymaking movie of 1949 and is considered the picture that sparked the biblical-epic film craze of the 1950s. It was followed by two of 1951’s biggest box-office hits, "Quo Vadis" and "David and Bathsheba". Charlton Heston starred in Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments" and "Ben-Hur". According to author Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, in the 1950s and 1960s, during the era of the production code, "the most acceptable cinematic path for movies to incorporate sex and violence was the biblical epic". Basing a film on the Bible
Cecil B. DeMille and Agnes, as well as DeMille's granddaughter, Cecilia de Mille Presley, also used the "de Mille" spelling. Cecil Blount DeMille was born in Ashfield, Massachusetts, while his parents were vacationing there, and grew up in Washington, North Carolina. His father, Henry Churchill de Mille (1853–1893), was a North Carolina-born dramatist and lay reader in the Episcopal Church, who had earlier begun a career as a playwright, writing his first play at age 15. His mother was the playwright and script writer Matilda Beatrice DeMille (née Samuel), whose parents were both of German Jewish heritage. She emigrated from England with her