Theatre Architects

Born: 1887 (Havre, Frane)

Died: 1975 (Cornwall, UK)

Andrew Jean Louis Mazzei was born in France in 1887, the son of a plaster figure maker. Mazzei’s family moved to London when he was four. After a year-long trip to Italy when Mazzei was nine (Italy being his father’s home country), the family settled in Blackpool by 1901. It was during this time that Mazzei’s father contributed ornate plasterwork to the Tower Ballroom designed by architect Frank Matcham.

Mazzei married Alice Fairclough in 1912. They never had children. After the First World War, Mazzei worked for Messrs. J. Panichelli & Sons in Hammersmith (London), on architectural and plaster work until 1921 when he found employment with the film company Famous Players–Lasky British Producers Limited.

By the 1930s Mazzei was working for Gainsborough Pictures, including designing backdrops for the critically acclaimed thriller Rome Express (1932) .

In 1956 there was a devastating fire at the Tower Ballroom in Blackpool. Mazzei, who had worked in the ballroom as a boy and whose father executed some of the decorative plasterwork in 1901, spent weeks studying the ruined decorations and photographs of the building before the fire, and worked as a guide to the ballroom’s restoration.

Mazzei passed away on 6th August 1975 at the age of 88.

Theatres on this website in which this architect was involved:

Blackpool Winter Gardens’ Spanish Hall, Blackpool, England, UK

(interior designer)