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Ferris Webster

Known For
Editing

Known Credits
2

Gender
Male

Birthday
April 29, 1912 (114 years old)

Place of Birth
Walla Walla, Washington, USA

Ferris Webster

Biography

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ferris Webster (April 29, 1912 – February 4, 1989) was an American film editor with approximately seventy-two film credits. He was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Film Editing for his work on Blackboard Jungle (1955), The Manchurian Candidate (1962), and The Great Escape (1963).

Webster was raised in the state of Washington, and was a student at the University of Southern California, where he was an outstanding track and field athlete. He was trained as an editor at the MGM Studios, and received his first feature-film credit in 1943 for Harrigan's Kid. At MGM, Webster edited six films with director Vincente Minnelli: Undercurrent (1946), Madame Bovary (1949), Father of the Bride (1950), Father's Little Dividend (1951), The Long, Long Trailer (1954), and Tea and Sympathy (1956). Film critic Bruce Eder has written of Madame Bovay that, "the cutting of the film in the gala ball sequence, in particular, was a marvel of the editor's art in the service of old Hollywood's restrained, elegant storytelling." In the mid-1950s, he edited three films with director Richard Brooks: Blackboard Jungle (1955), Something of Value (1957), and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958); Webster received his first nomination for the Academy Award for Blackboard Jungle. His last film at MGM was Key Witness (1960).

Bruce Eder has written, "If ever a film editor deserved public recognition in the 1960s, it was Ferris Webster." Webster edited the three films of director John Frankenheimer's "paranoia trilogy": The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Seven Days in May (1964), and Seconds (1966). Eder writes that The Manchurian Candidate was "the editor's magnum opus. The shooting, cutting, and intercutting of one extended brainwashing sequence, seen from multiple points-of-view, is still striking decades later, and the movie earned Webster his second Academy Award nomination." Frankenheimer cast Webster in his only appearance as a film actor, as Air Force Gen. Bernard "Barney" Rutkowski in Seven Days in May.

Webster was nominated for an Academy Award for the editing of The Great Escape (1963), which was directed by John Sturges. Webster and Sturges' notable collaboration included fifteen films between 1950 and 1972, which is about half of Sturges' films in that period. It started with The Magnificent Yankee and Mystery Street (1950), and included The Law and Jake Wade (1958), The Magnificent Seven (1960), and Ice Station Zebra (1968). The final film of their collaboration was Joe Kidd (1972), which was near the end of Sturges' career.

Joe Kidd starred Clint Eastwood. In the last phase of his career, Webster edited and co-edited eight films that were directed by Eastwood, starting with High Plains Drifter (1973), which was Eastwood's second film as a director. Webster edited Breezy (1973), The Eiger Sanction (1975), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), The Gauntlet (1977), Bronco Billy (1980), Firefox (1982) and Honkytonk Man (both 1982). These latter two films with Eastwood concluded Webster's career as an editor, apparently after a falling-out between the two men.

Additional credits include The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), Lili (1953), Forbidden Planet (1956), Les Girls (1957), Divorce American Style (1967).

Known For

Editing

1982Honkytonk Man...Editor
1982Firefox...Editor
1980Any Which Way You Can...Editor
1980Bronco Billy...Editor
1979Escape from Alcatraz...Editor
1978Every Which Way but Loose...Editor
1977The Gauntlet...Editor
1976The Enforcer...Editor
1976The Outlaw Josey Wales...Editor
1975The Eiger Sanction...Editor
1974Thunderbolt and Lightfoot...Editor
1973Magnum Force...Editor
1973Breezy...Editor
1973High Plains Drifter...Editor
1972Joe Kidd...Editor
1971The Organization...Editor
1971My Old Man's Place...Editor
1970A Walk in the Spring Rain...Editor
1970Zig Zag...Editor
1970Start the Revolution Without Me...Editor
1968Ice Station Zebra...Editor
1967Hour of the Gun...Editor
1967Divorce American Style...Editor
1966Seconds...Editor
1965The Hallelujah Trail...Editor
1965The Satan Bug...Editor
1964Seven Days in May...Editor
1963The Great Escape...Editor
1962The Manchurian Candidate...Editor
1962Sergeants 3...Editor
1961A Thunder of Drums...Editor
1961By Love Possessed...Editor
1960The Magnificent Seven...Editor
1959Never So Few...Editor
1959Green Mansions...Editor
1958Cat on a Hot Tin Roof...Editor
1958The Law and Jake Wade...Editor
1958The High Cost of Loving...Editor
1957Les Girls...Editor
1957Something of Value...Editor
1956Tea and Sympathy...Editor
1956The Fastest Gun Alive...Editor
1956Forbidden Planet...Editor
1956Ransom!...Editor
1955Blackboard Jungle...Editor
1954The Long, Long Trailer...Editor
1953All the Brothers Were Valiant...Editor
1953Scandal at Scourie...Editor
1953Lili...Editor
1952Lone Star...Editor
1952The Girl in White...Editor
1951Kind Lady...Editor
1951Father's Little Dividend...Editor
1950The Magnificent Yankee...Editor
1950Mystery Street...Editor
1950Father of the Bride...Editor
1950Please Believe Me...Editor
1949The Doctor and the Girl...Editor
1949Madame Bovary...Editor
1948On an Island with You...Editor
1947Living in a Big Way...Editor
1946Undercurrent...Editor
1946The Hoodlum Saint...Editor
1945Dangerous Partners...Editor
1945The Picture of Dorian Gray...Editor
1944Rationing...Editor
1943Swing Fever...Editor

Acting

1977The Man with No Nameas Self
1964Seven Days in Mayas Gen. Bernard "Barney" Rutkowski (uncredited)