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54 C I N E M O N T A G E I N M E M O R I A M served him well as an editor and, later in his career, when he found an unexpected final act as a mediator, social worker, and psychotherapist—the final twists and turns of a life that had been full of them. Frank died at age 81 on August 19. "He realized he had a talent for listening to people and helping to resolve conflicts," said his son Michael Frank, who connects his father's work as a mediator with his work in Hollywood. "I think conflict resolution is actually a huge connection," Michael Frank said. "He described the film business as having c r a z y p e r s o n a l i t i e s , a n d he sometimes made peace between the studio and the producers, on the one hand, and the director's vision on the other." Peter C. Frank was born in New York City to Chris Christensen and his wife, M a r g a r e t . W h e n h e w a s young, his mother remarried a man named Lloyd Frank, whose name Peter adopted. His stepfather and mother were labor organizers who worked with printers and t h e a t r i c a l s t a g e w o r k - e r s . " H i s p a r e n t s w e r e Communists, and they were blacklisted," Michael Frank said. "They fled New York and then got set up with a chicken farm in Connecticut." Decades later, as a post- p ro d u c t i o n p ro f e s s i o n a l , Peter C. Frank would work on two films that reckoned with left-wing movements in America, Warren Beatty's biographical por- trait of Communist journalist John Reed, "Reds" (1981), on which Frank served as a sound editor; and Lumet's historical drama "Daniel" (1983), whose principal characters are drawn from alleged spies for the Soviet Union (Julius and Ethel Rosenberg) and which was edited by Frank. Frank entered the University of Con- necticut but departed after a single year. He moved to New York where he found work as a messenger at CBS. "He delivered some film to a lab at one point and started working there," Michael Frank said. "Then he ended up getting involved a little bit in sound editing and mixing." He worked as a staff editor at Stars and Stripes Forever Productions where he cut commercials for Burger King and Virginia Slims. But it was far from certain that Frank would pursue postproduction: In 1969, he entered the Mannes School of Music where he pursued a passion for the cello. One edi- tor who remembers Frank from those days is Motion Picture Editors Guild president Alan Heim, ACE. "Peter Frank and I never worked to- gether, but in the then-small world of NYC editing, we spent some time together," Heim said. "What I most remember about Peter is that he dropped out of editing and went to music school to learn the cello and was good enough to give a recital. He later came back to editing and became a fine ed- itor. He was also a generous and thoughtful man, and a pleasure to be with." Eventually, concurrent with his educa- tion, Frank began establishing himself as a sound editor. He belatedly received his degree from Mannes in 1977, but by then, his day job had taken off. His credits as a sound editor include Jonathan Demme's "Melvin and Howard" (1980), Jerry Schatzberg's "Hon- eysuckle Rose" (1980), and Lumet's "Prince of the City" (1981). Then Lumet moved him up to picture editor on "The Verdict." "I only knew him as a pic- ture editor," Michael Frank said. "When I would call in sick from school, he'd take me to the cutting room and I'd play with the grease pencils and chop trims." Fo l l ow i n g h i s co l l a b o - ration with L umet, Frank made a pair of pictures with a cc l a i m e d d i re c to r Fra n k P e r r y , " C o m p r o m i s i n g Positions" (1985) and, co-ed- iting with Trudy Ship, "Hello Again" (1987). The latter was one of several on which he worked with picture editor Farrel L evy, ACE, then an a s s i s t a n t e d i t o r w h o m Frank mentored. "I was a single mother at the time, and in those days, there were not a lot of moms working, let alone single moms," Levy said. "He was very principled, and he really appreciated my need for bounds between my work and my home life. That was so important, particularly because the film business is very demanding and long hours are standard." On the 1987 drama "Dirty Dancing," starring Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey, Frank was the solo picture editor, but he agreed that L evy could edit scenes