Passages

Norman Hollyn, ACE
Picture Editor
May 11, 1952 – March 17, 2019

Norman Hollyn.

Norman Hollyn, ACE, was a large persona: tall, with a head of snow-white hair and a great laugh. His life was enormous and touched thousands of people around the world. He was an assistant editor, a music editor, a picture editor, an author, a teacher, a husband and a father. He was also the first holder of the Michael Kahn Endowed Chair of Editing at the University of Southern California, where he served as a full professor at the School of Cinematic Arts.

Born May 11, 1952 in Queens, he grew up on Long Island and studied at Stony Brook University, where he received a BA in Theatre Arts. He loved the movies. He loved telling stories.

On his first job as the apprentice sound editor on Lenny (1974), Norman was always the first into the editing room and the last to leave. A lover of music, he gravitated to the music department as John Strauss’ assistant music editor on Hair (1979).

After completing 18 months working on that musical, Norman wrote the The Film Editing Room Handbook: How to Manage the Near Chaos of the Cutting Room (1986, now in its fourth printing), with photos by his then-new girlfriend Janet Conn, whom he would marry in 1984. Janet was the love of his life. I have never known a closer couple. Their daughter Elizabeth was born in 1987 and has followed her parents into the arts as a fine artist, photographer and professional archivist, working with two established artists. Norman’s second book, The Lean Forward Moment: Telling Better Stories for Film, TV and the Web, was published in 2009. It inspired a panel discussion he moderated annually at ACE’s EditFest.

As a music editor, he worked on Fame (1980), Four Friends (1981), Sophie’s Choice (1982) and The Cotton Club (1984). As a picture editor, he cut seven episodes of The Equalizer television series (1985-1989) and the Oliver Stone-produced miniseries Wild Palms (1993), as well as many features, including Heathers (1988), Meet the Applegates (1990), It’s Pat: The Movie (1994) and, most recently, Shot (2017), directed by his USC colleague Jeremy Kagan.

But Norman’s life was so much more than the sum of his credits. He was a friend to hundreds of people within the film industry, and influenced thousands of film students around the world — first through his books and then by teaching and lecturing in China, Japan, Malaysia, South Africa, Estonia, Brazil, the Czech Republic and Israel. He held workshops with Jordan’s Royal Film Commission in Amman in 2005, which led to the establishment of the Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts that opened in 2008 in Aqaba.

A major consultant in the establishment of the Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, he also served as president of the University Film and Video Association and was a member of CILECT, the International Association of Film and Television Schools.

Norman died March 17, doing what he loved: teaching — in Yokohama, Japan. He was cremated in a traditional Buddhist ceremony attended by his wife Janet, their daughter Elizabeth and his colleagues at Tokyo University of the Arts. The cherry blossoms bloomed for him.

Michael Jablow, ACE

Barry Malkin, ACE
Picture Editor
October 26, 1938 – April 4, 2019

Barry Malkin.

Although I was a new kid in a new neighborhood — pretty much in a new school each and every year — I do have a memory of another boy I met when I was about 14 years old. He was shooting baskets alone at the public playground near Springfield Boulevard in Queens and, seeing me watching, asked me to shoot baskets with him for 25 cents apiece. I knew I had no such skill, but was anxious to have a friend, so I took on the challenge. I lost about $1.25 in quick order, but little did I know that this boy, Barry Malkin, would remain a friend and more; he became an important professional associate throughout my life.

For a while, we knew the same kids; Barry came to my 15th birthday party (of which I actually have 8mm movies), and then we went on our separate lives. We were brought together a few years later by the film industry we had both entered through different doors.

Barry had become a film editor, working with editor Aram Avakian, and I was a recent graduate of the UCLA film school who had made a film in New York edited by Avakian (You’re a Big Boy Now, 1966). So it made sense that Barry and I should work together on a new film that I planned to make while traveling across the USA. With an editing room in an RV trailer, Barry joined this cross-country adventure of The Rain People (1969), editing it as we went along our way.

It was a great adventure and was followed by a lifetime of collaboration on many movies. He was the one person from those early teenage years who was to span an entire lifetime working in film, and a collaborator on much of the work I did. Also, Barry edited many films of director friends of mine, but always remained an important and trusted collaborator throughout both of our careers.

His instincts and talent were a big influence and his skill was amazing. After the first preview of The Godfather: Part II (1974) to lackluster results in San Francisco, I made 120 changes to the film — which had to be ready in two days for another preview in San Diego. I watched as Barry executed those changes on picture and sound of a finished film (without code numbers) through the night, a feat that was essentially impossible. But Barry did it, and the subsequent San Diego preview effectively reversed that film’s fate.

Barry was always his own man; he never really accepted any opinion with which he didn’t personally agree and, for that reason, was a truly valuable artistic collaborator. He had his own style, his own sense of humor and his own integrity. Rarely in life nowadays do we have childhood friendships that span a lifetime — which is all the more why the passing of this dear friend and collaborator is of such importance to me.

Goodbye, dear friend, and may this rest now be as fine and complete as was the work you accomplished during your time with us.

Francis Ford Coppola 

*   *   *    

I first encountered Blackie [Malkin] at a sneak of Gordon Willis’ directorial debut, Windows in Los Angeles in 1980. I was introduced to Blackie, who quickly impressed me with his poker-faced calm, even when the film broke 10 minutes into the screening, resuming only after a half hour of rhythmic clapping and catcalls. The studio guys were ashen; Blackie showed no more emotion than a medical examiner making his rounds. For me, it was love at first sight — this was my kind of guy.

We did four movies together and he was never any different. Whether in the cutting room, the ADR studio or the final mix, he maintained an amazing professional calm and constantly balanced my mood swings. He would dampen my elation and shrug away my despair, particularly after those death marches know as “the assemblage.”

The first cut of The Freshman (1990) was particularly awful, the film lumbering by like a 200-car freight train, with Marlon Brando pausing for what seemed hours at a time. When it finally and mercifully ended, I pushed myself out of my seat at Magno’s Screening Room and just stared at Barry, waiting for his judgment, which was, “Lunch?”

He reacted no differently to more bearable first cuts, because he knew it was all a process, that the end result was miles away and there was always so much one could accomplish in post. One could not, as Lyndon Johnson famously said, “make chicken salad out of chicken shit,” but one could garnish it so it resembled something edible. And what I learned from that first cut of The Freshman, the first film we did together, was to give my scripts to Blackie months before shooting, so he could trim the fat before we rolled a foot of film. After eliminating six of the first nine scenes in The Freshman, I realized that if Blackie said, “We’ll never use it,” that meant we’d never use it, and would save days of aggravation and piles of money.

Andrew Bergman

*   *   *

I had the great fortune of being one of Barry’s assistant editors in the early ’80s. My older daughter once sadly remarked upon hearing about this period of my life before I had children by saying, “Wow, mom, I guess you peaked early.”

I guess she was right. Little did we know at the time, but many of us in the room tonight had the pleasure of assisting with one of the — if not the — best and most talented generation of film editors working in New York, away from the prying eyes of Hollywood studio executives, on a body of movies unparalleled in their uniqueness and artistry that will forever define a particular style and singularity of vision rarely seen in theatres today.

Barry Malkin epitomized that generation for his character, intelligence, humor, irreverence, diligence and devotion to his family, friends and fellow filmmakers — and for his steadfast refusal to give up on this city he dearly loved. He ensured that a culture of post-production continued to flourish in New York well after the demise of the institution where many of us forged those early bonds: Sound One on the seventh floor of the Brill Building.

I think it’s safe to say Barry’s influence and reach is everlasting. He has inspired several generations to try to walk in his…sneakers. I never get through a day without thinking of his editing methodology, his work ethic, his endurance at that Moviola, the jazz on the radio, the cigarette smoke, the meals at Rincon Argentina, his smile, his laugh and his memories of a past so few of us still hold in common.

Dorian Harris, ACE

*   *   *

What I learned from Barry at work was like taking a master class in film editing — not only its techniques, but its ethics. Barry had the strongest sense of professionalism I’ve ever witnessed. He’d get in two hours before anyone else even entered the building.

Barry’s razor-sharp intellect was part of what allowed him to be such a good editor. He was an expert at spotting the diamond in the rough. Often when watching dailies, he would notate the things that were bad, not the things that he liked, or what the director might want to hear. He possessed the unique talent of being able to sort through large amounts of improvised material and come up with a structure that would make the scene seem scripted. He was always able to find that certain line reading, the close-up, or the well-timed gesture that would put the right cap on a scene. That was his magic touch.

Sam Adelman

*   *   *

I first met Barry in the Brill Building in 1980. Reagan was on the rise, hostages in Iran, Blondie on the radio. I remember he wasn’t all that keen on me at first — I was just out of college and, in spite of never having seen a Moviola, I’d been dumped in his cutting room as a favor. Of course, I was thrilled. I was working with the guy who cut The Rain People and The Godfather: Part II. It was only a matter of time before the mysteries of making movies would be revealed.

But when I look back, I realize what Barry taught me was beyond a craft; he set a bar that shaped all of us who were around him. At the time, I didn’t understand what he was offering me; I was witnessing a master class in life. I learned to think things through before acting. I learned that your first instinct isn’t always the best, even if in the end you circle back to it. I learned that you took the time needed to get something right and that you ignored the many distractions; you focused and you went deep into yourself.

In front of a little green monster of a machine, you confronted the limits of your imagination through hundreds — thousands — of possibilities and you made choices. And then you undid them and started all over again in search of something inexpressible.

In that space, in those moments, something extraordinary was being created. It was both simple and endlessly mysterious.

John Coles

(Editor’s note: The above remembrances of Barry Malkin were excerpted and edited from speeches given at his memorial service in New York City on May 1.)

Theodore Rich, ACE
Picture Editor
December 2, 1929 – September 30, 2018

Ted Rich, ACE, passed away from heart failure September 30. He was 88. Besides the legacy of the films and television shows he influenced, Rich leaves behind his son, Steven, a daughter-in-law, two grandchildren and the many filmmakers he touched.

Rich was born in the Philippines on December 2, 1929 to an English father and French mother. He had one sister and four brothers. Before the outbreak of World War II, the family moved to Beverly Hills. After graduating from Beverly Hills High School in 1948, Rich entered UCLA, majoring in Business Administration.

In 1950, Rich married his high school sweetheart, Lois Pivar. His father-in-law, Maurice Pivar, was head of the editorial department at Universal Pictures, and he suggested that Rich try his hand at editing. Through Pivar, Rich met Dann Cahn, ACE, who brought him to Desilu Productions to assist Bud Molin on I Love Lucy. Molin taught him to edit. 

Rich moved up to edit on Desilu’s Harrigan and Son and other such 1960s-‘70s shows as I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster; The Bill Dana Show; My Living Doll; The Wild Wild West; McMillan & Wife; My Favorite Martian; and Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

Rich’s business background came into play when he became the post-production supervisor on The Good Guys series on CBS. With his experience in editing and a strong business education, Rich was perfect to helm post-production departments; he understood budgets, personalities and how things worked in the film and television businesses.

Rich was then a post-production manager at MTM Enterprises, when the studio made hits like Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, Remington Steele, Lou Grant, WKRP in Cincinnati, The White Shadow, The Bob Newhart Show, Rhoda, Phyllis, The Tony Randall Show and, of course, The Mary Tyler Moore Show. 

From MTM, Rich moved on to Lorimar, where, as head of the post-production department, he was responsible for the completion of such successful shows as Dallas, Knots Landing, Falcon Crest and The Waltons. When Lorimar was acquired by Warner Bros., Rich became head of the television post department until he retired.

During his retirement years, he enjoyed spending time with his family, friends and his dog Milo. In 2016, he received the ACE Career Achievement Award. 

Jack Tucker, ACE (Courtesy of American Cinema Editors)

Peter N. Harrison 
Sound Editor
August 10, 1941– March 12, 2018

Ours is an editing family, so when Peter Harrison died on March 12 at age 77, we lost more than an uncle and father. We lost a voice that knew the history of our craft; someone with whom we could share a meal and talk shop at the family dinner table without it sounding too much like work.  

Peter started his film career as a camera assistant for Union Pacific Railroad after an honorable discharge from the US Army. A year later, he moved on to “can boy” at General Film Lab. In 1965, he joined the Motion Picture Editors Guild, IATSE Local 776, and was eventually hired as an apprentice editor by 20th Century-Fox Studios. They way he told it, the film industry was so good to him that after just one year, he was promoted to assistant picture editor. 

In the mid-1970s, he moved to Lorimar to work on a little show called The Waltons (1971-1981), editing eight episodes. With picture editor Gene Fowler, Jr. as his mentor, Peter really honed his craft. He spent his spare time cutting sequences for any editor, on any show, who would let him.  He left Lorimar for Echo Films and he received his first of two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing for Inside the Third Reich (1982).

Peter then settled into consistent work with his brother, Rich Harrison, cutting both picture and sound on a wide variety of live-action TV movies and animated television series for The Film Business, Inc. He then received his second Emmy for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Miniseries or Special for The Murder of Mary Phagan (1988). 

After retiring in 2002, Peter spent much of his spare time trail-building in the San Gabriel Mountains. He also loved relaxing in the backyard with his wife Barbara, his dogs and a good book — as well as growing some of the best tomatoes we’ve ever tasted!  

He is survived by his loving wife Barbara Buffington, two children (Jim and Christine), three grandchildren (Adrian, Logan and Diana), great-granddaughter Natalia and his four-legged trail-building companion Judy.  

He is dearly missed. 

Jenny Jordan and Jim Harrison

Nicholas V. Korda 
Sound Editor
January 15, 1945 – October 8, 2018

Nicholas Vincent Korda was born January 15, 1945 in Los Angeles.  He was the second child of film director and producer Zoltan Korda and the actress Joan Gardner. He grew up in Beverly Hills with his older brother, David, whom he idolized.  

Nick’s career began at Walt Disney Studios as an assistant picture editor on The Black Hole (1979). He became an ADR editor and supervisor, working on over 80 motion pictures, including E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), The Breakfast Club (1985), Million Dollar Baby (2004), Flags of Our Fathers (2006) and Letters From Iwo Jima (2006).  

Nick studied history at UC Berkeley in the late 1960s and met Nancy Ferguson after leaving college and moving to LA. They married and had two children, Sarah and Andrew. He adored them and was so proud of them.  

Nick’s dry sense of humor and quick wit was legend. He never failed to see the ridiculous in just about everything, and felt it his job to point these things out — and all were thankful he did. His friends accepted and loved him for who he was.  

Although Nick was proud of his career, it did not define him. He was also a talented pianist. He returned to college to finish his degree in History.  He was interested in art and gardening.  But mostly, he wanted to spend as much time as possible with his children and granddaughter, Cleo. He carried photos of her wherever he went just in case she came up in conversation — and he always made sure she did. 

In 2010, Nick was diagnosed with brain cancer. His doctor called him his miracle patient when Nick beat the odds and the cancer. Sadly, it returned in 2013, and this time it won. He died October 8 with his assistant and friend of many years, Jackie, along with children Sarah and Andy (and Andy’s wife Pille) by his side. Our kind, sweet friend is gone, but we are left with many wonderful memories of him.    

Nick is survived by his two children and their spouses, Sarah Korda (Maria) and Andrew Korda (Pille); his brother David; his granddaughter, Cleo Delphine; his assistant Jackie Robertson; and many colleagues and friends who adored him.  

Connie Kazmer

David Ross Miller
Former Executive Director, Motion Picture and Videotape Editors Guild
September 7, 1946 – November 20, 2018

David Ross Miller, former Executive Director of the Motion Picture and Videotape Editors Guild, IATSE Local 776 (predecessor of the Motion Picture Editors Guild), passed away from complications due to liver transplant surgery on November 20 at the age of 72. 

An attorney by profession, he was involved in the motion picture industry since 1975, when he joined the Film Editors as Assistant Business Representative. He eventually became the Guild’s Executive Director before he left the union in 1984 to head Cinema Research Corporation and then, more recently, Wildfire Post-Production Studios.