Gaston Leroux

During his early years as a journalist in the late 1800s, Leroux spent time going the Paris Opera House and watching performances, and was influenced by Charles Gounod's opera "Faust", about a man who sells his soul to the devil. On one occasion, the chandelier which featured in the opera fell into the audience by accident. Combining the singers, Faust and the chandelier together, Leroux created "The Phantom of the Opera".

Worked as an international correspondent for the Paris newspaper "Le Matin". He was present at, and covered, the 1905 Russian Revolution.

A native of Paris, France, a poet, journalist and novelist, Gaston Leroux is known for his many creative horror stories, including "Rouilable", "The Haunted Chair" and "The Wax Mask", but is probably best known for his work "The Phantom of the Opera", which became Leroux's prize possession. He wrote the novel in 1908 about a disfigured man who dresses in masks and capes and terrorizes the Paris Opera House while falling in love with the leading lady. "The Phantom of the Opera" was based much upon Leroux's own experiences.

In 1923, Carl Laemmle, head of the new Universal Pictures in Hollywood, produced a film of the novel, Phantom Of The Opera (1925), with Lon Chaney in the lead. Leroux was impressed by this, but two years later he died.

Since that time, "The Phantom of the Opera" has become so popular it has inspired five feature remakes, one in 1943 Phantom of the Opera (1943)), another in 1962 (The Phantom of the Opera (1962) and again in 1989 (The Phantom of the Opera (1989)).

A television version was also made (The Phantom of the Opera (1983)) and then a remake made in 1999 (The Phantom of the Opera (1998)).