Gaston Velle

[2] Like his father, the Hungarian entertainer Joseph "Professor" Velle, Gaston began his career as a travelling magician, before putting his illusionist skills to work in cinema and ultimately creating more than fifty films between 1903 and 1911.

[3] He worked under Auguste and Louis Lumière, before serving as the head of production for the Italian film studio Cines.

[5] Additionally, Velle collaborated with other directors such as Segundo de Chomon and Ferdinand Zecca to create such silent film classics as the Moon Lover (1905), the Raja's Casket (1906), and the Hen that Laid the Golden Egg (1905), the latter of which was featured in the 1997 Martin Scorsese film, Kundun.

Velle mysteriously retired from film production in 1913, and little is known about the last several decades of his life.

Most notably, his son Maurice Velle, a Parisian cinematographer, had a family with screenwriter Mary Murillo.