Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1261193
Marty Cohen LONGTIME EDITOR AND POST PRODUCTION EXECUTIVE Marty Cohen, a longtime editor and post production chief who worked on more than a dozen Steven Spielberg films for Amblin and DreamWorks and whose producing credits include such hits as The Hunger Games and Godzilla, has died. He was 67. An Amblin spokesperson said Cohen died May 17 of natural causes after a long battle with heart disease. Marty, or Mendy, as he was affectionately called by his friends, abandoned studies in geology for a degree in communications from Queens College. He eventually landed a job with a courier company that offered to relocate him if he would help set up its offices in Los Angeles. Cohen left the Big Apple and after being in LA for only a year, he quit for two reasons: one, he didn't like working for a courier company; and two, it wasn't movies. He began his four-decade career in movies as a PA for Ralph Bakshi before working as an apprentice editor on the 1981 films American Pop and Pennies from Heaven. When the latter's editorial crew was relocated next door to the Poltergeist cutting room on the MGM lot, Cohen was low man on the Pennies totem pole. The story goes that Cohen found himself underneath a Kem, trying to help his neighbors put a fuse into the dead machine. Positioned like a mechanic under a car, he heard a voice from the other side of the room inquire, "Should we get a new Kem, since this one has been around the world?" When Jane Jaffe brought Cohen back to the Pennies cutting room, she smiled and asked, "You know BY ERIK PEDERSEN, TOM TAPP Above, left and right: Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan