Richard de Mille

Richard de Mille is the adoptive son of director Cecil B. DeMille. He was born of an affair between Cecil's married brother William C. de Mille and actress Lorna Moon. To avoid a family scandal, Cecil agreed to adopt the boy. When he began to display the de Mille family features, some thought that Richard was actually Cecil's out-of-wedlock son and the adoption was a ruse to deflect scandal off Cecil. Richard always knew he was adopted, but he was not told the truth about his real parents until his biological father died in 1955. He later researched the family trees of his mother's parents and published a book on the subject in 1998.