Biography
Alexandre Trauner (born Sándor Trau) was a Hungarian film production designer who worked extensively in France and Hollywood. He studied painting at the Hungarian Royal Drawing School in Budapest before leaving the country in 1929.
In Paris he became assistant to set designer Lazare Meerson and later a chief set designer. He collaborated with director Marcel Carné on films including Port of Shadows (1938), Le Jour se lève (1939) and Children of Paradise (1945), working in hiding on the latter during the Nazi occupation of France.
From the late 1950s he worked on international productions, notably eight films with Billy Wilder between 1958 and 1978, including Witness for the Prosecution (1957) and The Apartment (1960), for which he received an Academy Award. Other credits include The Man Who Would Be King (1975) and Subway (1985). In 1980 he served on the jury of the Berlin International Film Festival.
