Alexandre Trauner

Sándor Trau was born in Budapest in 1906 and left Hungary in 1929, fleeing the antisemitic government of Admiral Horthy; the French record describes him as a Hungarian Jew. In Paris he became assistant to the set designer Lazare Meerson and then the designer of Marcel Carné's films — Drôle de drame, Le Quai des brumes, Hôtel du Nord, Le jour se lève. Under the Occupation he hid in the mountains near Tourrettes-sur-Loup and worked clandestinely, uncredited: the boulevard du Crime of Les Enfants du paradis, one of the most famous sets in cinema, was designed by a man who could not put his name on it. He went on to work for Orson Welles, Billy Wilder, John Huston and Joseph Losey, and won the Academy Award for The Apartment.