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(2 February 1873, Paris, France - 4
August 1961, Paris, France)
 Born
Maurice Félix Thomas be began using the stage name Maurice Tourneur
in his show business career, performing in secondary roles on stage
and eventually toured England and South America as part of the
theater company for the great star Gabrielle Réjane.
Drawn to the new art of filmmaking, in 1911 he began working as an
assistant director. A quick learner and an innovator, within a short
time he was directing films on his own using major French stars of
the day such as Polaire.
In 1914, with the expansion of the giant French film companies into
the United States market, Tourneur moved to New York City to direct
silent film features for a new French-owned studio in Fort Lee, New
Jersey. Before long, Maurice Tourneur was a major and respected
force in American film and a founding member of the East Coast
chapter of the Motion Picture Directors Association. As the feature
film evolved, he and his team showed exceptional skill with their
use of the latest technological developments in film that gave their
productions a visual appeal better than most of their competitors
that at the same time met with critical acclaim.
Tourneur admired D.W. Griffith and considered the skill level of
American actors at the time ahead of their counterparts in Europe.
Of the actresses he worked with, he called Mary Pickford the finest
screen actress in the world and believed that stage actress Elsie
Ferguson was a brilliant artist.
In 1918 Maurice Tourneur launched his own production company with
the film, Sporting Life. In 1921 he became a naturalized citizen of
the United States. By 1922 he believed that the future of the film
industry lay in Hollywood and the following year he was hired by
Samuel Goldwyn to go to the west coast and make a film version of
the Hall Caine novel, The Christian.
In 1923 he decided to move back to his native France. There, he
continued to make films both at home and in Germany, easily making
the change to talkies. Tourneur went on to direct another two dozen
films, several of which were crime thrillers, until a 1949
automobile accident in which he was seriously injured and lost a
leg. Health and age prevented him from directing more films, but a
voracious reader and a skilled hobby artist, he kept busy painting
and translating detective novels from English into French. |
