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Seventy years ago, Charlton Heston parted the Red Sea in the Biblical epic The Ten Commandments. The nearly four-hour story of Moses and the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt is perhaps the most beloved of the many high-budget religious films churned out by Hollywood in the 1950s and 1960s – it’s aired on TV nearly every Easter weekend since 1973.

In addition to Heston, the 1956 movie, which was directed by Cecil B. DeMille, stars Yul Brynner, Yvonne De Carlo, and Anne Baxter. It also featured a young actor named Debra Paget, who is the only confirmed surviving major cast member from The Ten Commandments.  

Debra Paget played Lilia in ‘The Ten Commandments’

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Born in 1993, Paget got her start in Hollywood with roles in movies like Cry of the City, Broken Arrow with Jimmy Stewart, and Les Misérables, where she played Cosette. After starring in the historical epic Princess of the Nile she was cast as Lilia, a water girl, in The Ten Commandments. 

The same year The Ten Commandments was released, Paget starred opposite Elvis Presley in Love Me Tender. She continued to act in various films and TV shows until the mid-1960s, when she stepped away from Hollywood. 

In the early 1990s, Paget returned to the spotlight to host a show on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. Now, 92 years old, Paget reportedly lives in Texas. In 2007, she commented on her appearance in The Ten Commandments. 

“About 30 years ago, I became a born-again Christian,” she told Parade. “I think my evangelical work was foreshadowed when Cecil B. DeMille chose me for The Ten Commandments and said, ‘I feel the hand of God has been on you.’”

While Paget is the only main surviving cast member from The Ten Commandments, at least one other actor who appeared in the film is still alive. Kathy Garver, now 80 years old, played a young slave girl in the film and later when on to star as Cissy in the sitcom Family Affair.

What happened to the rest of ‘The Ten Commandments’ cast?

What happened to the other stars of The Ten Commandments?

  • Heston died in 2008 at age from pneumonia complications and Alzheimer’s disease.
  • Brynner, who played Rameses II, died in 1985, at age 65, from lung cancer. 
  • Baxter, who played Nefertiti, also died in 1985, at age 62, after experiencing a stroke. 
  • De Carlo, who played Sephora, died in 2007 from heart failure. She was 84. 
  • Edward G. Robinson, who played Dathan, died in 1973, aged 79, from bladder cancer.
  • John Derek, who played Joshua, died in 1998, at 71, from cardiovascular disease. 

Other actors featured in The Ten Commandments included Vincent Price, Judith Anderson, and John Carradine. The massive cast, enormous sets, elaborate special effects, and location shooting in Egypt made it the most expensive film ever made at the time. The budget was more than $13 million, but the investment paid off for Paramount, with The Ten Commandments grossing more than $65 million at the box office in its initial release. 

“In many ways, it’s the first modern Hollywood epic,” Heston’s son Fraser Heston – who played the infant Moses in the film, told Forbes in 2020. “And I do think people look at that movie and go, ‘Wow, this is what cinema can do.’ It became the benchmark for epic films.”

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