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Thomas Stanford
Thomas Stanford
Born	Thomas Gerard Stanford; November 18, 1924; Düsseldorf, Germany
Died	December 23, 2017 (aged 93); Santa Fe, New Mexico, U.S.
Occupation	Film editor
Years active	1955–1988

Thomas Gerald Stanford (1924 – 2017) was an American film and television editor with about sixteen feature film credits. He won the Academy Award for Best Film Editing at the 34th Academy Awards for the film West Side Story (1961), which was only his second credit as an editor.^[1] Long afterwards, West Side Story was listed as the 38th best-edited film of all time in a 2012 survey of members of the Motion Picture Editors Guild. The film's editing is also featured in Louis Giannetti's textbook Understanding Movies.^[2]^[3]

Stanford's first credit as an editor was for Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), which was a major production by the independent producer Sam Spiegel. Excepting a 1955 film version of the opera Don Giovanni, any earlier work as an assistant editor wasn't credited. This was typical in the 1950s.^[4] Stanford edited three films with director Sydney Pollack, including Pollack's first feature The Slender Thread (1965). Stanford's work on Pollack's feature Jeremiah Johnson (1972) drew the attention of critic Gene Siskel, who wrote "Oddly enough, it is the violent scenes, the ones that don't work within the story, in which Pollack excels. Jeremiah's battle with a pack of wolves, and, later, a pack of Crow Indians, are stunning examples of direction and editing."^[5] In the 1960s, Stanford edited two films directed by Mark Rydell, including his debut The Fox (1967). Stanford's last film before his retirement was Split Decisions (1988).

He attended Malvern College from 1939-1942.

Stanford died at the age of 93 in 2017.^[6]^[7]

Filmography

This filmography is based on the listing at the Internet Movie Database.^[8]

Editor
Year	Film	Director	Notes
1959	Suddenly, Last Summer	Joseph L. Mankiewicz
1961	West Side Story	Robert Wise Jerome Robbins
1963	In the Cool of the Day	Robert Stevens
1964	Emil and the Detectives	Peter Tewksbury
1965	The Truth About Spring	Richard Thorpe
1965	The Slender Thread	Sydney Pollack	First collaboration with Sydney Pollack
1967	Don't Make Waves	Alexander Mackendrick
1967	The Fox	Mark Rydell	First collaboration with Mark Rydell
1968	Hell in the Pacific	John Boorman
1969	The Reivers	Mark Rydell	Second collaboration with Mark Rydell
1971	The Steagle	Paul Sylbert
1972	Jeremiah Johnson	Sydney Pollack	Second collaboration with Sydney Pollack
1974	The Yakuza	Sydney Pollack	Third collaboration with Sydney Pollack
1979	The Onion Field	Harold Becker	Uncredited
1981	The Legend of the Lone Ranger	William A. Fraker
1988	Born to Race	James Fargo
1988	Split Decisions	David Drury

Editorial department
Year	Film	Director	Role
1986	Saving Grace	Robert M. Young	Additional editor

Documentaries

Editor
Year	Film	Director
1980	Pacific High	Michael Ahnemann

Editorial department
Year	Film	Director	Role
1966	The Crazy World of Laurel and Hardy	—	Supervising editor

TV documentaries

Editor
Year	Film	Director
1974	The Yanks Are Coming	Ed Spiegel

TV movies

Editor
Year	Film	Director
1977	Mad Bull	Walter Doniger Len Steckler
1978	Sergeant Matlovich vs. the U.S. Air Force	Paul Leaf
1979	Before and After	Kim Friedman

Editorial department
Year	Film	Director	Role
1955	Mozart's Don Giovanni	Paul Czinner	Assistant editor

TV series

Editor
Year	Title	Notes
1960	Route 66	1 episode
1966	Burke's Law	2 episodes
1966	Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color
1972−73	Hec Ramsey

References

^ "The 33rd Academy Awards (1961) Nominees and Winners". Oscars.org. Retrieved March 21, 2014.
^ "The 75 Best Edited Films". Editors Guild Magazine. 1 (3). May 2012. Archived from the original on 2015-03-17.
^ Giannetti, Louis D. (2018). Understanding Movies (14 ed.). Boston: Pearson. p. 160. ISBN 9780134492087. OCLC 950611437. Musicals are often edited in a radically formalist style, without having to observe the cutting conventions of ordinary dramatic movies. The editing of West Side Story is very abstract. The music, by Leonard Bernstein, and the dance numbers, choreographed by Jerome Robbins, are edited together for maximum aesthetic impact, rather than to forward the story. Nor are the shots linked by some principle of thematic association. Rather, the shots are juxtaposed primarily for their lyrical and kinetic beauty, somewhat like a music video.
^ Zone, Ray (May–June 2006). "Recalling the Esteemed O'Steen". Editors' Guild Magazine. 27 (3). Retrieved 2014-05-29.
^ Siskel, Gene (December 28, 1972). "Jeremiah Johnson". Chicago Tribune.
^ Barnes, Mike. "Thomas Stanford, Oscar-Winning Film Editor on 'West Side Story,' Dies at 93". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 4 March 2020.
^ "Thomas G. Stanford's Obituary on Santa Fe New Mexican". Legacy.com. Retrieved 31 December 2017.
^ Thomas Stanford at IMDb