Maurice Tourneur, the film director and screenwriter, was born Maurice Thomas in the Parisian suburb of Belleville, France on February 2, 1873, the son of a jewelry merchant. Thomas was trained and employed as a graphic designer and a magazine illustrator as a young man. After serving in the French artillery in Northern Africa, he became an assistant to sculptor Auguste Rodin and later to muralist Puvis de Chavannes, before deciding to change his life along with the changing century and make ...[Read Story]