Frank Mazzola

Frank Mazzola (March 7, 1935 – January 13, 2015) was an American actor and film editor with about fifteen credits dating from 1969.^[1]

Career

Mazzola was born in Los Angeles, California. As a child and young adult, Mazzola worked as an actor.^[2] In 1955, he acted in Rebel Without a Cause (among other films) with James Dean, Sal Mineo, Natalie Wood, and Dennis Hopper.^[3] He played "Crunch," a minor character, and was one of the last surviving cast members from that film.

In 1966, Mazzola started editing films. Since that time, he has edited Performance (1970 - uncredited), The Hired Hand (1971), Demon Seed (1977), The Secret Diary of Sigmund Freud (1984), and Wild Side (1995), among others. He worked with director Donald Cammell on three of his four feature films. Mazzola pioneered the non-linear editing style in Performance^[4] and other Cammell films,^[5] as well as the lyrical style that is found in The Hired Hand.^[2]

He edited several of director Donald Cammell's films, including the well-received "director's cut" of Wild Side that was released four years after Cammell's 1996 death.^[6]

Frank Mazzola has also been credited as film producer.

He died on January 13, 2015, aged 79.^[7]

References

1. Frank Mazzola at the Internet Movie Database
2. Gollner, Adam (December 1, 2000). "Rebel with a Cause. 50s Film Legend Frank Mazzola Still Wants To Rumble". Vice. 7 (8).
3. "Frank Mazzola Filmography". Fandango.
4. Smith, Richard Harland (2010). "The Gist". TCM Underground. Archived from the original on 2010-06-15.
5. Le Cain, Maximilian (December 2002). "Donald Cammell". Senses of Cinema. Retrieved 2013-07-22.
6. Pendreigh, Brian (January 13, 2000). "A cut above". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2013-07-22. Donald Cammell's reputation has soared posthumously. Brian Pendreigh meets Frank Mazzola, the editor who has restored the director's last film
7. "Frank Mazzola, Film Editor and 'Rebel Without a Cause' Actor, Dies at 79". Variety. Retrieved 21 January 2015.

Further reading

• Williams, Linda Ruth (2005). The Erotic Thriller in Contemporary Cinema. Indiana University Press. p. 405. Cammell/Mazzola's is a remarkable film, combining non-linear narrative story-telling with a sophisticated, coded use of colour (fades to blue and red) and a pervasive dreaminess, particularly in the lesbian seduction scenes.