Ferris Webster | |
---|---|
Born |
Ferris Maynard Webster April 29, 1912 Walla Walla, Washington |
Died | February 4, 1989 Nipomo, California |
(aged 76)
Occupation | Film editor |
Years active | 1939–1982 |
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 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).