Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1504875
MARION ROTHMAN JULY 3, 1928 - MAY 17, 2023 F ilm editor Marion Rothman passed away on May 17, 2023, at the age of 94. She spent her long career edit- ing an extremely eclectic group of films, s p a n n i n g m a ny ge n re s. Th e s e i n c l u d - ed "Memoirs of an Invisible Man" (1992), "Mystic Pizza" (1988), "Starman" (1984), "Christine" (1983), "All Night Long" (1981), "Starting Over" (1979), "Comes a Horse- man" (1978), "Funny Lady" (1975) and "Play It Again, Sam" (1972). Marion was known for her dedication to bringing the director's vision to the screen, and she was fiercely loyal to the many varied directors she worked with. These included Herbert Ross, John Carpenter, Donald Petrie, Harold Ramis, Alan Pakula, Richard F l e i s c h e r, a n d J e a n - C l a u d e T ra m o n t , among many others. Marion was also known for her wicked sense of humor, which she often used to defuse stressful editing room situations. I was lucky enough to have worked with Marion at the beginning of my career on three different films, the first of which was "Starting Over" (1979). She hired me as an apprentice. It was one of my first jobs after I moved to Los Angeles from London. I was very impressed by her strength and integri- ty. She always protected her crew and stood up for them. It was around this time that Marion met the love of her life, Diane Castro. They were together for 44 years. They married in 2008, when same-sex marriage became legal in California. Marion was born on July 3, 1928, in Detroit, Mich., the daughter of Russian im- migrants. Her family moved to Los Angeles and Marion graduated from UCLA. Her father owned a number of billiard parlors that were later taken over by her older brother, Ted. Marion's father also owned a candy store when she was a child. Candy stores back then were often the targets of organized crime, and Marion used to say she was the only child she knew who had a bodyguard. She attended a workshop in North Car- olina where she met director Arthur Penn and a young Jack Nicholson. Marion co- wrote a script there called "The Wild Ride" that was subsequently made into a film starring Nicholson. Despite having no fam- ily in the business or any connections, she went on to work as a secretary for George Stevens Jr., whose father George Stevens was directing "The Diary of Anne Frank" (1959). Part of her job was to take notes for the director in the projection room. Stevens often asked for her opinions and told her she had "a good eye." This led to a job as an assistant editor on the film, which piqued her interest in film editing. One of her first films as an editor was "The Boston Strangler" (1968), for which she was nominated for an ACE Eddie award. Marion worked at a time when the film business was a man's world and women had a difficult time advancing. Sometimes called "The Dragon Lady" (with a lot of affection), Marion did not suffer fools. But her toughness, ambition, and integrity im- pressed directors over many decades. The strength she radiated also lost her a number of jobs. Not every director considered her strengths something they wanted in an editor. But Marion never compromised who she was to get a job. Marion bonded with other strong wom- en during the '60s and '70s. Editor Marjorie Fowler was a mentor. And Marion was to become good friends with fellow editor Verna Fields, who went on to become a vice president at Universal. On the film "Ash Wednesday" (1973) that starred Elizabeth Taylor and Henry Fonda, Marion and Taylor "hung out" together on location in Italy, commiserating on the difficult production that had gone overbudget and oversched- ule. According to Diane, Taylor and Marion consumed many glasses of wine together. Before the advent of digital editing, there were primarily three viewing devices used to edit film: a Moviola, a Kem, or a Steenbeck. Marion was a Moviola person and did not like the Kem or the Steenbeck. She expressed her feelings about how she liked to work in a 2019 interview for the Motion Picture Editors Guild Archive. "What is interesting is what precipi- tated my getting out of the business. I'd done something like 22 features. We were 48 C I N E M O N T A G E I N M E M O R I A M