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S ound editor Don Hall, MPSE had a golden ear. Over the course of a strikingly diverse and exceptionally long career, Hall shaped the soundscapes to films ranging from "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1969) to "Young Fran- kenstein" (1974) to "Single White Female" (1992). He oversaw the hectic overlapping dialogue of "M*A*S*H" (1970), the crisp monologues delivered by the titular World War II hero of "Patton" (1970), and the au- thentic urban ambience of "The French Connection" (1971). Hall, who died on March 12 at age 96, heard what a project needed and what its director wanted. "He liked to go to dailies and listen to what the director had to say because it gave him an insight on what was wanted as far as sound was concerned," said his widow, Teddy, who was Teddy Tang when she mar- ried Hall in 1951. "He was easygoing, very mellow, didn't get flustered easily, and he was quite a creative mind." His colleagues describe their friend as a uniquely talented and resourceful sound editor and a generous person. "He was fun and interesting," said vet- eran picture editor Don Zimmerman, ACE who worked with Hall on pictures ranging from 1983's "Staying Alive" to 1995's "A Walk in the Clouds." "I've worked with him since the '60s. . . . He had good taste and follow-through — and he was funny." E m my- n o m i n a te d a n d G o l d e n R e e l Award-winning ADR editor Bobbi Banks, MPSE said in a statement to CineMon- tage, "Don Hall encouraged me at a very pivotal time in my career. He was a kind soul, a mentor to many, and a continual voice of wisdom." The son of a father who emigrated from China to the United States and a mother born in the U.S., Hall was born in Vallejo, California and raised in Berkeley. Although his family ran a restaurant, Hall displayed a creative streak early in life. "He was always interested in photography," Teddy Hall said. DON HALL JULY 10, 1928–MARCH 12, 2025 "He graduated from high school six months early so he could get a start on some kind of a career. He took pictures of different houses and sold them to realtors. That was quite innovative at the time." After a 22-month stint in the Marine Corps, Hall attended ArtCenter College of Design in Los Angeles. Initially intending to parlay his photographic prowess into a career as a cinematographer, Hall found employment at Mercury International P ictures, a company that churned out industrial films and commercials. "But then Mercury had to unionize," said Teddy Hall. "At that time, it was very difficult to get into one of the guilds if you didn't know someone or have someone in the family who was already a member. There were openings in the cinematographers union and also in the Editors Guild, but he chose the Editors Guild because he thought he may have more opportunities there than as a cinematographer." Practical considerations also played a role in Hall's decision to focus on sound editing, which did not require as lengthy a period of apprenticeship or assistantship as did picture editing at the time. "Because I came from a company that was unionized, the Guild allowed me to move to sound in a shorter time," Hall said in an interview with CineMontage in 2011, when he received the much-coveted Fellowship and Service Award from the Motion Picture Editors Guild. His career took him from being a sound editor at Federal Television and Samuel Goldwyn Productions to eventually becom- ing the head of the sound department at Twentieth Century Fox. Along the way, Hall found himself working closely with some of the leading filmmakers of the era, including George Roy Hill ("Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"), Robert Altman ("M*A*S*H"), Franklin J. Schaffner ("Pat- ton"), and perhaps an unlikely favorite: the irascible but brilliant Otto Preminger, for whom Hall worked on films including the musical "Porgy and Bess" (1959), the courtroom classic "Anatomy of a Murder" (1959), and the World War II masterpiece "In Harm's Way" (1965). "Otto did take his sound editor with him when he was filming the picture, and that did not happen very often in Hollywood," Teddy Hall said. "Otto was so good to us. That last picture Don did with Otto was 'In Harm's Way.' Back in the day, it was feast or famine. You either were working or there was always a downtime in the spring where you had to kind of tighten your budget and get yourself over the three months when production would begin again. It was a wonderful experience because Otto flew the whole family over to Hawaii, and instead of giving Don above scale, he gave me this allowance. It made it a very nice vacation." While maintaining his involvement in feature films as a sound editor, Hall also advanced to the position of postproduc- tion supervisor at television production companies including Quinn Martin, Spell- i n g- G o l d b e rg P ro d u c t i o n s, a n d A a ro n Spelling Productions. "I first worked as a p o s t p ro d u c t i o n s u p e r v i s o r o n ' T h e Love Boat' — something I had not done before — overseeing all elements of sound and picture in postproduction," Hall told CineMontage in 2011. "TV in those days 44 C I N E M O N T A G E I N M E M O R I A M