March 5, 1934 to October 24, 2024
As an old veteran of Old Hollywood and pioneer of New Hollywood, image editor John F. Burnett spans two worlds. Burnett died on October 24 at the age of 90, at Warner Bros. The Spirit of St. Louis (1957), Mervyn Leroy’s Gypsy (Gypsy) (1962) and George Cukor’s My Fair Lady (1964).
However, the film business had already moved on when long-time studio employees won the privilege of editing movies themselves in the late 1960s. Large-scale musicals, stellar-powered vehicles and scripts that make code-controlled are coming, but the editor adapts to Time. Burnett edited several signature films for Adventure of the New Hollywood Age, including Sydney Pollack’s “Our Way” (1973), Herbert ·Herbert Ross’s The Goodbye Girl (1977) and Norman Jewison’s “And Justice” (1979). Along the way, he helped bring several mentors to a new era: Burnett edited Blake Edwards’ meditation, the melancholy Western “Wild Rovers” (1971) , starring William Holden, Ryan O’Neal and Karl Malden and Karl Malden and him as George Cukor The last film, a brilliant romantic comedy, Rich and Famie (1981), was created by Jacqueline Bisset and Candice Bergen Starring Bergen.
Burnett is the master of his craft, regardless of type or era.
“He’s so fast,” said John Earl Burnett, his son, photographer, photographer and producer. “He will be cut the day after they finish the shooting. His assistant will be his first black and white liar to cut, and when it is done, he will refer to it to see what has changed. It’s so fun- Finally, he could almost go back to where he had it.”
Burnett also contains many characters in his life outside the cutting room: he was immediately the pioneering president of the Society of Film Editors (1975-76), a modest, modest man who comfortably works on his own 20 acres. ranch work. California was serving the industry that established his name.
But regardless of Burnett’s definition, his death represents the end of one of the most famous professions in late production.
John Earl Burnett said: “He would take what the director gave him, and Cukor gave him thousands of feet a day because he did everything from the top – and he just Put it together.”
One of John F. Burnett, born in Kansas City, Missouri, just briefly returned his home to his home on the Great Plains. Gilbert and his family were attracted by California’s commitments to raise shares from Burbank and eventually became engineers at Lockheed Corporation. At John Burroughs High School in Burbank, John is a track and field athlete and light opera singer. “The problem wasn’t fashionable at the time,” Burnett said in an interview with Cinemontage in 2012. “Uso doesn’t want to listen to me singing “Figaro” from “Sevilian Barber”! ”In his youth, he raised a love for horses and ropes, and he would be with him throughout his life.
Burnetts’ distance from the film business offers another career path: his family’s home is about two miles from Warner Bros., where his mother advised him to seek a job after high school. “Jack Warner doesn’t have much formal education and doesn’t like college graduates,” Burnett told Cinemontage. “He wants people to be promoted,” Burnett editor. The first film is “The Spirit of St. Louis” edited by Arthur P. Schmidt.
Over the next decade, Burnett gained early opportunities from his later collaborator George Cukor. During Robert L. Simpson, editor of Cukor’s 1962 drama The Chapman Report, the Ace rejected the director’s request for work on the weekends. “So no one was there except poor John!” Burnett recalled in a 2008 cinema interview: “I didn’t have much editing experience at the time, but I came in and worked with George. And He didn’t forget my loyalty in coming in to work with him.”
After Burnett became one of the most outstanding editors in the industry years later, Cukor called on him to edit his famous TV film Love of the Ruins (1975), This is a historical romance starring Katharine Hepburn and Laurence Olivier. The two worked on “Rich and Famous” for the last time.
“In many companies, department heads come. Not with George. “It’s my editor and my time,” Burnett told the cinema. “George is strict.” George asks you to stay before that person speaks until he or she completes his sentence. If the line is “I think we should go to town now”, once “now” is over, you’re laying off employees. If there is a little reaction on the other side, you use it, and if not, the other person will say, “No, let’s go for about two hours.” Many people think that if you overlap the last part of that line on Incoming people’s face, it speeds up and smooths down, reactions, and rhythms of conversation. A few times, if I did, it would be better. Whenever George grabbed it, he said, “John, you know.”
Throughout his career, Burnett has established long-term relationships with directors and producers including Blake Edwards editors “Wild Rovers” and “A Fine Mess” (1986) , the latter with Robert Pergament. Burnett gets his first official opportunity thanks to director Robert Ellis Miller who hired Burnett to cut his versus Carson McCar Carson McCullers’ adaptation of “The Heart Is the Lonely Hunter” (1968) and quickly signed a multiple contract (he was later released so that he could work elsewhere).
Thanks to his love for horses and ranch, Burnett considers “Wild Wanderers” to be one of his favorite projects.
“He’s the West and the Cowboy guy,” said John Earl Burnett. “It’s just a good shot. Blake only did it for eight hours. We and Karl Malden ( Karl Malden fished together. We went to OK Livestock with Tom Skerritt. [Edwards’s wife] Julie Andrews has 101 Dalmatians flying. It’s almost like a small family. ”
Burnett also edited numerous films for producer Ray Stark, including The Owl and the Cat (1970), by Barbra Streisand and George Starring George Segal, and “The Sunshine Boys” (1975) starring Walter Matthau and George Burns. And, after cutting the “Gypsy” and “My Fair Lady,” Burnett once again found himself assembling musical numbers on this genre’s new Hollywood spin, box office boxing Smash “Grease” (1978) and sequel, “Grease 2” (1982).
Burnett (a single card for Burnett’s picture editor, guaranteed for early credits, was far from the norm at the time. “We wanted a card to match the photographer,” Burnett told Cinemontage, and he recalled during the contract negotiations. His conversation with Sid Sheinberg and Lew Wasserman of MCA Universal Pictures. “We don’t want to get into technical credits.”
He has served in the School of Film Arts and Sciences, including the Executive Secretary (1983-1984) and the Board of Directors (1975-1985).
Burnett’s work on two huge historical miniseries Winds of War (1983) and War and Memorial (1988-89) emphasizes his honor. Burnett, along with Peter Zinner, Ace, won the Ace Eddie and Primetime Emmy in various sections of War and Memorial. In 2003, he won the ACE Career Achievement Award.
By then, Burnett had retired to his ranch in Lincoln, California. Burnett starts taking a step back from the feature film, moving to plot TV to take care of his wife, Rosemarie, and then suffers from cancer. After Rosemarie’s death in 1998, Burnett married Marjolane of Margie, who was Rosemarie’s best friend and John Maid of honor in marriage with Rosemarie. “It’s a good thing because they have something in common,” said John Earl Burnett, who died in 2018.
John F. Burnett survived with Rosemarie, John Earl Burnett and Stephen F. Burnett. ■
– Peter Tonguette
