Best Picture Editing Honored with Eddie Awards

Teasing that the ACE logo looked like "Lorena Bobbitt's business card," Cassandra "Elvira" Peterson made the 47th Annual Eddie Awards entertaining and fun. The American Cinema Editors' annual event was held on Saturday, March 15th in the International Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton.

The ACE Golden Eddie was presented to low-budget king Roger Corman who declared "The editor is the true artist of motion pictures." The list of

Guild member Drake Silliman said, "We must guard and stand for justice every moment", after winning an A.C.E. Eddie for "The Man Who Captured Eichmann".

successful movie careers started with a Corman film is long, ranging from Scorsese and De Niro to the ACE's own Mark Goldblatt. Unusual for a non-union outfit, Roger Corman's companies seem always to have elicited good-humored forgiveness for their legendary penny-pinching.

ACE Career Achievement Awards were given to Fred Berger A.C.E. and Harry Gerstad A.C.E. Presenting the award to Fred, Linda Gray (of 'Dallas' fame) described him as "gracious and debonair." Fred reminisced about when Moviolas were black, cutting-copy sound was optical and "the whole town went a little berserk" when magnetic tracks arrived. His career ranged from Hopalong Cassidy features to 'Gunsmoke', 'MASH' and 'Dallas' on TV. Last year he edited 'Dallas Reunion', comfortably switching to a Lightworks at an age when most editors wouldn't even switch golf clubs. "Avid or Kem," said Fred, "You are still the editor." Harry Gerstad got his start with director Edward Dmytryk then worked for Stanley Kramer at Columbia, winning an Academy Award for 'Champion' in 1949. He won a second Oscar for 'High Noon' in 1952, sharing the award with Elmo Williams, and retired to Palm Springs in 1973 after a long and productive editing career in features and TV.

Director Paul Verhoeven handed the Eddie for best edited feature film in 1996 to Walter Murch, A.C.E. for 'The English Patient.' In an unusual double-header Walter had won an award the previous week from the Cinema Audio Society as one of 'The English Patient's post production mixers. Also nominated for the Eddie were Gerry Hambling, A.C.E. for 'Evita', the pseudonymous Roderick Jaynes for 'Fargo', Richard Francis-Bruce, A.C.E. for 'The Rock', and Pip Karmel for 'Shine'.

Paul Rubell, A.C.E. won the Eddie for best edited episode of a television mini-series for 'Andersonville - Part Two'. Paul thanked director John Frankenheimer, his assistant and co-editor, Adam Scott, and producer Ethel Winant.

Also nominated were Michael Ornstein, A.C.E. for 'In Cold Blood - Part Two', and Benjamin Weissman, A.C.E. and Dennis Vejar, A.C.E. for 'Ruby Ridge: An American Tragedy - Part Two'.

The Eddie for best edited two-hour movie for commercial television went to Drake Silliman, A.C.E. for 'The Man Who Captured Eichmann'. For the record, Drake edited the show on a D-Vision which he likes very much. Also nominated were Allan Holzman for 'Apollo II' and Mark Conte, A.C.E. for 'Crazy Horse'.

Randy Roberts, A.C.E. won the Eddie for best edited one-hour series for television for 'Chicago Hope - Transplanted Affection'. Also nominated were Randy Morgan for 'ER - The Healers' and Heather MacDougall for 'X-Files - Unrhue'.

The best edited half-hour series for television Eddie went to Skip Collector for 'Seinfeld - The Abstinence'. Also nominated were Leslie Tolan and Sean K. Lambert for 'The Larry Sanders Show- Everybody Loves Larry' and Briana London, A.C.E. for '3rd Rock From the Sun - Dick Like Me'.

Pasquale Buba, A.C.E., William A. Anderson and Ned Bastille won the Eddie for best edited documentary for 'Looking for Richard'. Also nominated were Barry D. Nye, A.C.E. and David Hughes for 'National Geographic Special - Last Feast of the Crocodiles' and Paul Seydor for 'The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage'.

The award for best edited two-hour movie for non-commercial television was handed out by Steven Segal, after some appalling jokes, to Zach Staenberg for 'Gotti'. Also nominated were Michael N. Knue, A.C.E. for 'Lily Dale' and Alan Baumgarten for 'Losing Chase'. The student competition was won by Mirella Martinelli Magnoli of City College, San Francisco.