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202 Yes, Mr. DeMilk the studio grounds. He had been searching for someone to portray the wicked and beautiful empress, Poppaea. He went up to her and without preliminary, said, 'To me you are the wickedest woman in the world." It was unusual even as Hollywood introductions go. Already he envisioned her in the silks, jewels and sultry dalliance of Nero's wife. Drastically transformed, Claudette turned out to be an eyeful as Poppaea, and gave DeMille an opportunity to show how wrong Paramount was in putting a sweetness-and- light label on the actress. DeMille labored hard on the feminine characters in his plots —"Feminine allure is a ruthless tool that has changed the course of civilizations/* There were times when these predatory females sorely tried him- He once set about to find a symbol of all women, some- thing that would typify female power. He asked around and one day came upon what he felt was the answer: the snake. A woman's allure can be as deadly as a snake, plaguing the male in its glistening coils. After that, snake symbols were everywhere on DeMille sets. Some were cast in bronze as ornaments, pot holders, cane grips, often placed close to the heroine, on her person, or as part of her furnishings. In speech, too—"forked-tongue adder" was the phrase he used to describe Delilah. The Cleopatra of history took her own life in a classic fashion, so far as DeMille was concerned. She may not have had the producer in -mind when she committed suicide by clasping an asp to her breast, but a knowledge of his philosophy might have made the act a little more pleasant for her. When he decided to film her story, DeMille mulled for some time over how to persuade Claudette Colbert to do the death scene with a live snake. DeMille was opposed to stuffed sub- stitutes as strongly as most women detest the live ones. At the first suggestion she might be expected to handle the real article, Miss Colbert shuddered.