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Q4 2022

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Candice Bergen, right, and Faith Ford in "Murphy Brown". P H OT O : P H OT O F E S T 77 W I N T E R Q 4 I S S U E I N M E M O R I A M and Pam Marshall, co-edited ABC's "Ameri- can Bandstand's 30th Anniversary Special." Both projects garnered Wiard additional Emmys. "It was the luck of the draw as to what he got and what came through the door," Nancy Wiard said, pointing out that her husband did equally well with comedic and dramatic material. "He was just such a totally gifted editor. He edited 'The Young and the Restless' occasionally, when they were lucky enough to get him." Other sitcoms on which Wiard worked included "Charles in Charge" and "Alice." But Wiard burnished his reputation on "Murphy Brown," the iconic CBS series starring Candice Bergen as the titular character, a trailblazing television news- magazine anchor contending with sexism, the news of the day, and single motherhood. In her statement to CineMontage, En- glish credited Wiard with honing the show during the editing process. "I always came in too long. Not seconds but minutes. Many minutes," English said. "He was a wizard at helping me to find the most graceful cuts. Sometimes it came down to the painstaking process of pulling a single second out of every edit just to bring the show in on time without losing a favorite joke or moment. He never balked." Nancy Wiard remembered: "The 'Mur- phy Brown' pilot episode was turned over to the network, and then from there, they belonged to the network, but that episode was so tightly edited, CBS was unable to find an edit to get the show to go to time." Wiard considered the show to be a high point, his wife said, and his colleagues recognized his efforts with eight Emmy nominations over the run of the show, re- sulting in two wins: for the pilot and for the episode "On Another Plane." Following the end of the original run of "Murphy Brown," Wiard, who joined the American Cinema Editors in 1992 and was ACE Eddie-nominated twice, stayed active as an editor as well as a mentor. "He did a lot of training with other editors," Nancy Wi- ard said. "He trained an awful lot of people on the Avid and other systems." Retired picture editor Stuart Bass, ACE, met Wiard in the 1980s at the Emmys. "He won that year — I didn't," Bass said. "We kind of hit it off. I think this is important for all editors: that you're both left-brained and right-brained. He had a lot of technical acu- men, but on the other hand, he also knew how to build a story." Even after he retired in 2009, Wiard remained engaged with his chosen medium. "He was up to date on what was going on and how things work," Nancy Wiard said. "He was very happy sitting at home. Every once in a while, if he saw something that he thought was really well-edited, he would say something." But few shows were ever quite as well edited as those cut by Wiard. "I remember a time when he literally built a guest actor's performance in the editing room and that actor got an Emmy nomination," English said. "We joked that it should have gone to Tucker. He was as good as it gets." ■ - Peter Tonguette 'He was a wizard at helping me find the most graceful cuts,' says Diane English.

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