"He was a man who helped fashion Hollywood," Stanbury said. "Ninety years ago he was making his first feature film in Hollywood, and he was still here working in the dawn of the widescreen era, well into the modern age of cinema. He represented Hollywood. But beyond film, there was much more to the man. He started one of the first passenger airlines in this country in the late teens. He set trends. He helped establish the pattern for modern Hollywood." (Perhaps the only present-day equivalent to DeMille, as a director whose name alone can sell movie tickets, is Steven Spielberg, who's interviewed in the documentary.)

The show has information gleaned from a number of sources, including the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University, which houses DeMille's archives.

"That's a treasure-trove of information," Stanbury said. "I spent quite a bit of time there, looking through that material."

And it helped flesh out "American Epic," which is not just about DeMille's movies but about DeMille himself. Based on more than two years of research, it "grew out of years of research work" — which yielded a few surprises along the way. "For me, one of the great surprises was to ask somebody who was working for Paramount, 'Do you have any outtakes from 'The Ten Commandments'? Expecting the usual bland, 'No, they've all been junked,' they said, 'Yeah, we've got hours of the things.' And two days later, there I was, watching this footage."

And, much to his surprise, he found himself looking at shots of how they filmed the parting of the Red Sea for the 1956 version of "The Ten Commandments" on the Paramount back lot. "This was absolutely stunning, to see footage that we had no idea existed. . . . It's almost more spectacular than the finished result."

But it was finding out about DeMille as a person that fascinated the filmmakers. Finding out from people like Elmer Bernstein, the Oscar-winning composer who was basically an unknown before DeMille hired him to score the second version of "The Ten Commandments." (Bernstein also scored the "American Epic" documentary.)

"It was a wonderful way of getting to know, from a deeply person point of view, the regard that he had for the man who had given him an enormous opportunity and helped lay the foundations for his career," Stanbury said.

And to get to know a man whose Hollywood legend has become much misunderstood. "I think this was summed up best by an interview we had done some years ago with (special-effects wizard) Arnold Gillespie, who said that DeMille was hated by everybody he ever worked with until they got to know him.

"And we got to know him."

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If you watch

What: "Cecil B. DeMille: American Epic"

Where: Cable/satellite channel, Turner Classic Movies

When: Monday ("Part 1") and Wednesday ("Part 2"),

6 and 9:30 p.m.

Web: www.turnerclassicmovies.com

Also . . .

What: DeMille's "King of Kings" (1927), with live organ accompaniment

Where: The Organ Loft, 3331 S. Edison (just east of State Street)

When: April 8 and 9, 7:30 p.m.

How much: $5

Phone: 485-9265

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E-mail: pierce@desnews.com