Still Cutting It At Eighty-Five An Interview with Editor Ralph E. Winters by Karen Kalish Ralph Winters' career began with a two-reeler for MGM and he's still working. "When I think of the people who have really had a strong influence in my career, I would put Ralph Winters right up there. He has the great qualities of a director, a sense of leadership and knowing. If Ralph said 'I've got an idea I want to try' [on 'Kotch'] I would always let him. And...as a human being, he is one of the most outstanding people I have ever met." - Jack Lemmon - June 14, 1995
		"There are no miracles in film," according to two-time Academy Award-winner Ralph Winters,A.C.E.. "You're working with material you've been handed. There have been times that I have worked, strived and beaten my brains out and sometimes I can't make a sequence look good because it is just isn't there."* Over the past 65 years Ralph's had the opportunity to work on some absolutely wonderful material. He's been nominated for six Academy Awards for best editing - 'Kotch', 'The Great Race', 'Ben Hur', 'Seven Brides for Seven Brothers', 'Quo Vadis', and 'King Solomon's Mines', winning the Oscar twice with 'Ben Hur' and 'King Solomon's Mines'. Toronto-born Ralph admits, "I was lured by the excitement and romance of the picture business. Actually, when I was a kid, I wanted to be a cameraman, but you couldn't get into the union...it was a closed shop...so I got into the cutting department because, at the time (unlike the camera union) they were not organized - this was in 1928 before the editors' union. My father was a tailor at MGM where the wardrobe department was across from the cutting department. He was acquainted with the head of that department and that's how I got started. I was 18 and I knew I couldn't afford to go to college and I didn't want to work my way through because I felt I wasn't going to get the best out of college if I had to work my way through...which a lot of fellas did." Ralph got his break when he was working in the shorts department at MGM. "I was editing a four reel short, we used to call them four-reelers - the title of it was 'They All Come Out'. We got it all finished and the company discovered we didn't have a release for it." At that time they had releases for two-reelers, but not four-reelers. "So," Ralph continues, "they decided to elaborate on it and make it a feature length movie, which they did. They wrote some stuff and it became a seven-reeler. And that was my first feature credit. That was an exciting moment!" "It was tough to get a chance then but, as tough as it was then, in today's world, editors have a much tougher time," acknowledges Ralph. "In those days, the producers were hired and they were employees of a major company - they never worried about getting the money to make the movie, they had their choice from a "pool" as to who was going to act, direct, edit, etc." The MGM shorts department was its own entity. They had their own producers, their own directors, their own production department It was a separate department away from the rest of the studio. Says Ralph, " It was a hell of a good learning ground. There were people around to pick you up if you fell." Fred Zinnemann was one of the many who came out of that shorts department and Ralph edited his first feature, 'Kid Glove Killer'. "Many of today's directors are not as schooled," Ralph observes, "If the young directors today had a good knowledge of editing, they wouldn't shoot as much film. They do a lot of things you wouldn't think of doing in the old days, but they're getting away with it - and I think some of that is due to television -in other words, when you look at enough television you begin to accept certain things like quick cutting and other types of cutting which are not well executed." Ralph decided that he wanted to become a director, even with two Academy Awards for editing. In 1960, he asked MGM for a leave of absence and he said "they hemmed and hawed." He told them "I'm not going to look for a cutting job, I'm happy cutting here, but I'm trying to become a director." It was frustrating for Ralph because MGM's stance was that "it was better to have a good editor than a mediocre director," and they didn't want to give him a chance. So...he quit. For the next year, he tried to become a director but "Nobody would give me a chance...everybody said to me, 'Ralph, Gee whiz, no... but I have a feature coming up and you can cut it." Finally, after almost a year of getting nowhere, having spent almost all his money, Marty Jurow, who was an agent in town, called him and said that he was producing a picture called 'The Pink Panther' - Blake Edwards was to be the director. Jurow told him, "We're going to do it in Rome and we want you to edit it and we're not going to talk to anyone else until you decide what you want to do." Winters had already been in Rome twice with Sam Zimbalist - first on 'Quo Vadis' and then with 'Ben Hur'. He described Edwards as being a "hot director, having just done 'The Days of Wine and Roses' and 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' at the time. "So...I took myself into a corner," Ralph reminisces, "and said to myself, hey, you're not going to be a director, but you can still make a contribution by cutting and doing a good job. I decided I would cut 'The Pink Panther', go back to Rome, and forget about directing...I made up my mind I wasn't going to grieve about it...and if it came along, it came along - which it never did." However, Ralph did get a chance to direct some second unit for Blake on a picture called 'The Great Race'. "I was out of the cutting room for nine weeks and I had a lot of fun doing that." Ralph went on to cut such titles as 'Butterfield 8','The Thomas Crown Affair', 'The Front Page', and 'Kotch', as well as eleven more Blake Edwards films including 'Victor Victoria' and 'Micki and Maude' - his last one of that group in 1984. In addition to his contribution to cutting, he offered his services on the board of directors of the EditorsGuild, the American Cinema Editors, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 1964, Ralph was named president of the Editors Guild by acclamation, marking the first time an Oscar-winning film editor occupied that post - also the first time a new president was voted in by acclamation. And...in 1991 he received the ACE Eddie Career Achievement award. Currently, Ralph is working on 'Cutthroat Island' with Frank Urioste - who has a lot of years of experience himself. In the early days, when Frank was just starting out, he worked for Ralph on two Mirisch films back to back. Over the years, whenever they ran into each other, Frank would jest, "Ralph, I need a refresher course, I'm going to have to work on a picture with you." Ralph says, "In truth, it was I who needed the refresher course...and so...it came to pass on 'Cutthroat Island', he asked me and I said, sure!...I think Frank is one of the best active editors in the industry." A multi-Academy Award nominee, his most recent assignments have included blockbuster dramas such as 'Cliffhanger' and 'Total Recall', with Oscar nominations for 'Robocop', 'Die Hard' and 'Basic Instinct'. Frank currently serves as a governor of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. "I must say," Ralph volunteers, "it's been 10 years since I worked on 'Mickey and Maude', and in that time I don't think I've ever been assigned a particular picture of my own, but I've done a lot of work. I didn't decide to retire, I didn't decide not to retire, I guess it sort of happened...They sort of stopped breaking down my door. I guess, and I assume I'm right, that a lot of young men don't care to work with fellows that are old enough to be their grandfathers...They don't want to tell you what to do. I can appreciate that, because I think they are right...There is always a transition going on in our craft." "My craft has been good to me, I've raised my family, earned my living and always enjoyed it, especially when I'm working with talented people....then it's a real kick...a lot of fun,"* Ralph assesses, I've had a very interesting career, very varied, and I've worked with some pretty wonderful people." Blake Edwards, Billy Wilder, Jack Lemmon, William Wyler, Stanley Donen, Robert Wise, George Sidney, Vincent Minnelli, and George Cukor are among the names of the luminaries he's worked with. When asked if he ever thought of writing a book, he said, "I must confess, it has been proposed to me...maybe some day." * From Vincent Lobrutto's book, "Selected Takes, Film Editors on Editing"
	When this article was written, Karen Kalish was working at N.T. Audio/Hollywood
	Reprinted from The Motion Picture Editors Guild Newsletter Vol. 16, No. 4 - July/August 1995   Guild Home | Newsletter Home | Top of Page   Copyright © 1996, All Rights Reserved by The Motion Picture Editors Guild, IATSE Local 776