Author. He gained fame as a prolific French novelist, who was best known for his 1910 "Le Fantôme de l'opéra" or "The Phantom of the Opera," which received international acclaim. Since being published, the novel has been adapted to stage and films several times. Most recently, in 2004, "The Phantom of the Opera" was adapted to an Academy Award-nominated film with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. After finishing school, he became a clerk, studying law while writing in his spare time. Following graduating in 1889 with a law degree, he abandoned law for a literary career. After some success with his publications as a newspaper court reporter and theater critic, he became a full-time journalist by 1890. From 1894 to 1906, he was an international correspondent, reporting his articles back to Paris, especially the coverage of the Russian Revolution of 1905. In 1907, he published his first novel, "Le Mystère de la chambre jaune" or "The Mystery of the Yellow Room," a saga of an amateur detective. He was mimicking the literary works of the American author Edgar Allen Poe and the British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This successful novel followed with at least six sequels but not as successful. He formed his own silent film company, Société des Cinéromans, to adapt his novels to films. Originally published in parts instead of a novel, his 1910 "The Phantom of the Opera" was not successful at first, but after being adapted to an American silent film in 1925, the novel had a following. Andrew Lloyd Webber adapted the novel to a stage musical in 1982. Although he published two plays and a host of short stories and novels, none reached the acclaim as "The Phantom of the Opera." Continuing with a "Beauty and the Beast" storyline, this included his 1912 novel, "Balaoo," which was about an ape turned near-human by a physician and has a love affair with a woman. He married twice and had a son and a daughter with his second wife.