Alexander Mackendrick
Alexander Mackendrick ( born September 8, 1912 in Boston, Massachusetts, † 22 December 1993 in Los Angeles, California ) was an American film director.
Life and work
Alexander Mackendrick was born in the United States, but moved at a young age with his Scottish parents in Scotland. There he studied at the Glasgow School of Art After he had completed his education, he started as a commercial artist to work, and his first works were animated commercials. But soon he realized that he would like to make feature films. In the 1940s he began to produce several documentaries and screenplays.
His first feature film was 1948 Enjoy life, which was followed by the films The Man in the White Suit (1951 ), Mandy (1952 ), Oller Kahn with megalomania (1953) and The Ladykillers ( 1955). Several of these films constitute part of, become classics comedies of Ealing Studios.
His first Hollywood film was the 1957 film drama Sweet Smell of hand with Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis. But this film proved in commercial terms as a failure, and further work Mackendricks failed to match the success of his British films. After these failures him an academic post in the film division of the California Institute of the Arts was offered, a position he held until his death.