An Italian costume designer (Rome, 1923-2015) who worked in film, theatre and television. With a painterly touch, Marisa d’Andrea’s sketches bring characters to life with creative originality and an ability to interpret the innovative ideas of directors with philological rigour by means of a careful study of the scripts and iconographical sources together with careful preparatory work on period dress styles. Trained at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome in Set Design taught by Vittorio Grassi and at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Costume with Gino Carlo Sensani and then Veniero Colasanti, where she qualified in 1949, d’Andrea began her career in the theatre with Luigi Squarzina and developed a partnership with her set designer husband Gianni Polidori. Her career continued in the cinema as assistant to Maria De Matteis in the films of Luigi Chiarini, King Vidor, Luigi Zampa and Carmine Gallone. Other directors she worked with included Duilio Coletti, Augusto Genina, Dino Risi, Alessandro Fersen, Mario Soldati, Alberto Lattuada, Marco Leto, Sergio Sollima, José María Sanchez and Lamberto Bava and she designed the costumes of important film and theatre stars such as Amedeo Nazzari, Vittorio Gassman, Ugo Tognazzi, Max von Sydow, Françoise Fabian and Stefania Sandrelli. In 1980 she began teaching at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia as full professor in Costume until 2000 and then gave Seminars until 2003. Her last work dates to 1993 when she made one hundred and thirty sketches for a film on Sandokan by Sergio Sollima, a project which remained on the drawing board.
She appears in the titles also as Misa D’Andrea and Marisa Polidori.