Prolific filmmaker Frank Marshall has been selected by the Board of Directors of the American Cinema Editors (ACE) to be honored with the organization’s prestigious ACE Golden Eddie Filmmaker of the Year Award. The award will be presented at the 65th Annual ACE Eddie Awards black-tie ceremony on Friday, January 30, 2015 in the International Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
“Frank Marshall has helped shape American film, treating audiences to some of the most well-loved, successful and enduring films in cinematic history,” stated the ACE Board of Directors. “From “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “The Sixth Sense” and the “Back to the Future” trilogy, among so many others, Mr. Marshall has made – and continues to make – a profound and indelible contribution to the cinematic landscape. We are honored to recognize him for his extraordinary accomplishments.”
Starting as a location manager on Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show, by 1981 Marshall was working as a producer on Raiders of the Lost Ark with Steven Spielberg and future wife Kathleen Kennedy. Shortly thereafter, the trio formed industry powerhouse Amblin Entertainment, and together produced movies such as Gremlins, the Back to the Future trilogy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Hook, Empire of the Sun, and the Indiana Jones trilogy. In 1991, Marshall and Kennedy left Amblin to form their own production company, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, where they produced The Sixth Sense, Signs, Seabiscuit, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, War Horse, and all four films in the Bourne series.
In 2012, Marshall took over as sole principal of the company when partner Kathleen Kennedy became Chairman of Lucasfilm. Currently, he is producing Jurassic World, which opens on June 12, 2015. Marshall has 5 Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, including Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Color Purple, The Sixth Sense, Seabiscuit, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. In addition to his prolific producing career, Marshall is also an acclaimed director, having helmed Arachnophobia, Eight Below, Alive, Congo, an episode from the HBO miniseries “From the Earth to the Moon,” and the award-winning ESPN documentary Right to Play.
A Los Angeles native and son of composer Jack Marshall, he ran cross-country and track as a student at UCLA and was a three-year varsity letterman in soccer. Combining his love for music and sports, Marshall and America’s premiere miler, Steve Scott, founded the Rock ‘N’ Roll marathon, which debuted in 1998 in San Diego as the largest first time marathon in history. For over a decade, Marshall was a Vice President and member of the United States Olympic Committee. In 2005 he was awarded the Olympic Shield, and in 2008, inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame for his service to the Olympic movement. He serves on the Board of Athletes for Hope and the USA Track & Field Foundation.
In addition to his service to sports organizations, Marshall is also involved in the educational arena, serving as co-chair of LA’s Promise, and trustee of The Archer School for Girls. He is a recipient of UCLA’s Alumni Professional Achievement Award, the 2008 Producers Guild of America’s David O. Selznick Award for Career Achievement, as well as the 2009 Visual Effects Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Marshall joins a distinguished group of past ACE Golden Eddie honorees including Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, Norman Jewison, Alexander Payne, James Cameron, Clint Eastwood, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese, Saul Zaentz, Paul Greengrass and Stanley Donen, among others. ACE, the entertainment industry’s honorary society of film editors, is comprised of over 700 accomplished editors working in film and television.
The ACE Eddie Awards recognize outstanding editing in ten categories of film, television and documentaries. Nominees for the 65th Annual ACE Eddie Awards were announced on January 2nd.
The Lifetime Career Achievement Award honors veteran editors whose body of work and reputation within the industry is outstanding. Carolyn Giardina will receive the esteemed Robert Wise Award, which recognizes a journalist whose writing has contributed significantly in elevating public consciousness to the crucial role of editing in the filmmaking process. This honor is presented periodically, not every year, and is voted upon by the ACE Board of Directors, while the Career Achievement honors are an annual tradition.
“Diane Adler, Jerry Greenberg and Carolyn Giardina represent the best in their fields,” stated the ACE Board of Directors. “It’s not only their tremendous contributions to film, television and journalism that warrant recognition, it is their tireless dedication to their craft – the tenacity each of them has shown is the kind of energy and dedication that our organization thrives on and delights in recognizing in these outstanding and deserving honorees.”
About DIANE ADLER, ACE
Diane Adler, ACE is probably best known for her work editing some of the most memorable television series’ in history: The Rockford Files, Spencer: For Hire and Kojak. Despite her success, Adler didn’t start off wanting to be an editor or even part of the entertainment industry. Her primary goal when she started out in the 1950’s was to earn enough money to send both of her kids to college. Yet despite putting motherhood first, over the next four decades, she would leave an indelible mark on American television and immerse herself in various leadership roles within entertainment industry organizations such as American Cinema Editors and the Motion Picture Editors Guild.
She got her start at Ziv Productions where she worked as the highest paid secretary making $115 a week, but craving advancement. Her hard work paid off when one of her bosses at Ziv, Don Tait, moved to 20th Century Fox where they were just starting up their TV division, and hired Adler to help cut television commercials into the TV programs. She later worked at 4 Star Productions where she met film editor Tom Rolf, ACE. In the early 1960’s, Rolf subsequently moved on to Paramount where he was cutting features and called Adler to come in for a one-week gig as an Assistant Editor on a project. Adler jumped at the chance to get the experience and took the gig despite its short-term parameters. As luck would have it, Rolf’s regular Assistant Editor left to pursue another opportunity and Adler got the job steady. Chuck West, head of Paramount editorial at the time took notice of Adler’s killer work ethic and her one-week gig turned into a two-year stint at the studio. There she worked as an assistant editor on various features for editors including Stuart Gilmore, Bill Brame and John Woodcock with whom she worked on El Dorado starring John Wayne and Robert Mitchum.
Assistant editing was going well for her and then television came calling when she was offered a job as an Assistant Editor at Warner Bros. and worked on several popular TV series of the day. From there she edited many movies-of-the-week such as Huckleberry Finn, The New Maverick, Thursday’s Game and Girl Most Likely to… and she worked a season editing the acclaimed series Kojak. But it was The Rockford Files, where she spent five years as an editor, where she really felt like she was home. To this day, the crew still celebrates RockFest each July, an annual reunion for those who worked on the show.
Her additional series credits include Bret Maverick, Riptide, Hunter and The Rousters, along with made-for-TV movies likeShe’s in the Army Now, Percy & Thunder and Wild Jack. Her other feature credits include co-editing The Presidio.
After retiring in the early 1990’s, Adler dedicated herself to organizations such as ACE and the Motion Picture Editors Guild. She is currently on the board of the Motion Picture Editors Guild and actively involved with ACE. She produces the organization’s “Invisible Art/Visible Artists” panel held annually with the Oscar® nominated editors the day before the Academy Awards. And, after four decades of work, she sent both of her kids to college.
About JERRY GREENBERG, ACE
Jerry Greenberg, ACE is a three-time Oscar® nominee, winning once in 1972 for his work on The French Connection, for which he also won a BAFTA Award for best editing. He also was Oscar® nominated twice in the same year (1980) forKramer vs. Kramer and Apocalypse Now.
Greenberg is known for his work on many of the films of the American New Wave working for directors like Arthur Penn, Francis Ford Coppola, Sidney Lumet, Michael Cimino, Brian De Palma and William Friedkin. His filmography includes Bye Bye Braverman, Dressed To Kill, Alice’s Restaurant, The Boys in the Band, They Might Be Giants, Scarface, Still of the Night, Reds, Heaven’s Gate, Wise Guys, The Untouchables, The Accused and Awakenings, Trapped, Get Carter, Inspector Gadget and American History X, among many others.
He began his career in his native New York in 1960 where he learned how to edit music and began familiarizing himself with the Moviola, splicers, synchronizers and recorders. He was ready for his big break and he got it when he was offered an apprenticing job for the legendary Dede Allen on Elia Kazan’s America America. By 1967, Greenberg and Allen were working closely together and on Bonnie and Clyde Greenberg was given the task of editing a couple of the shootout scenes and worked closely with Allen and director Arthur Penn on them. Not soon after, his career was off and running. He cut his first solo feature Bye Bye Braverman for director Sidney Lumet in 1971 and won the Oscar® and BAFTA for editing William Friedkin’s The French Connection a year later. The infamous car chase from that film has been dissected and taught at film schools ever since.
About CAROLYN GIARDINA and THE ROBERT WISE AWARD
Award-winning journalist and author Carolyn Giardina has covered editing and post-production throughout her career. She serves as contributing editor, tech, at The Hollywood Reporter, for which she writes its ‘Behind the Screen’ blog. Carolyn has also worked in the U.S. and abroad as an editor, reporter or columnist for publications including SHOOT, Film & Video, The IBC Daily and the SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal. Since 2013 she has served as editorial consultant for ACE’s in-house publication, CinemaEditor.
As a member of the Hollywood Post Alliance board, she co-founded the Hollywood Post Alliance Awards, which is now in its 10th year. She also regularly contributes to the community as a conference speaker and moderator. She is co-author of “Exploring 3D” (Focal Press, 2012), which examines the aesthetics and creative potential of incorporating depth into storytelling. In 2011, she received the International Cinematographers Guild’s Technicolor William A. Fraker Award for outstanding journalistic contributions to cinematography.
The Robert Wise Award was first presented at the 50th Annual ACE Eddie Awards and has only been presented a few times in the last fifteen years. Past recipients include Jack Tucker, ACE, Edgar Burcksen, ACE, Vinny LoBrutto, ACE, Steven Cohen, ACE, writer Michael Ondaatje.
