Andrew Mazzei | |
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Born | 2 August 1887 Le Havre, Seine-Maritime, Upper Normandy France |
Died | 6 August 1975 Cornwall, England United Kingdom |
Other names | André Jean Louis Mazzei |
Occupation | Art director |
Years active | 1926 - 1952 (film) |
Andrew Mazzei (1887–1975) was a French-born British art director who designed the sets for more than sixty films during his career. Mazzei began his career in the late 1920s during the silent era including on the futuristic High Treason. By the 1930s he was working for Gainsborough Pictures, designing backdrops for the critically acclaimed train-set thriller Rome Express in 1932.
His 1940s work includes Gainsborough Melodramas such as Madonna of the Seven Moons and The Magic Bow as well as the Film Noirs The Upturned Glass and They Made Me a Fugitive. In 1947 he was employed on the Technicolor film The Man Within. Most of his final films during the early 1950s were lower budget crime thrillers.
Andrew Mazzei was born André Jean Louis Mazzei in Le Havre, France on 2 August 1887 to Italian / French parentage.
His father, Giovanni Mazzei (born 1 August 1852 in Colognora di Val di Roggio, Pescaglia, Lucca, Tuscany, Italy) was an Italian 'Plaster Figure Maker' who had moved to France to ply his trade. He married Andrew's mother, Evarestine Marie Lemen (born 29th Oct 1852 in Beauvoir, Vendée, France - died 28 June 1912 in Holborn, London, England) on 15 August 1881 in Nantes, France.
The family moved to London, England in 1891, where they stayed until Andrew was nine years of age when his father took him to Italy for 12 months. On returning, the family lived for a short time in Brighton and Manchester, and by 1901 they had settled in Blackpool. It was during this time that Andrew's father had contributed ornate plasterwork to the Tower Ballroom designed by Frank Matcham.
According to the 1911 census, Andrew had contributed decorative plasterwork to the Coronation Exhibition of George V.
Andrew married Alice Fairclough (1887-1973) on 7 October 1912 at South Shore, Fylde, Lancashire. They had no children.