Toby Yates obit

Toby Yates, Film Editor and Son of ‘Bullitt’ Director Peter Yates, Dies at 61

His résumé included ‘Blue Car,’ ‘The Midnight Meat Train’ and episodes of ‘Brothers & Sisters’ and ‘Shameless.’ 

He was not on the list.

Toby Yates, a film editor in Hollywood for 40 years and the son of Oscar-nominated director-producer Peter Yates, has died. He was 61.

Yates died Nov. 17 in Los Angeles after a stroke, his family announced.

Yates was a frequent collaborator with director Karen Moncrieff, editing her first feature, Blue Car (2002), followed by The Dead Girl (2006) and The Trials of Cate McCall (2013).

He also cut The Moon and the Stars (2007) for director John Irvin — he received a best editor prize at the Milano International Film Festival for that — and The Midnight Meat Train (2008) and No One Lives (2012) for director Ryûhei Kitamura.

Most recently, he edited Brave the Dark (2023), directed by Damian Harris.

Toby Robert Quentin Yates was born on Sept. 18, 1962, in London and raised there and in New York City. He studied filmmaking and editing while in high school, working as an apprentice editor and later assistant editor under Roy Lovejoy (2001: A Space Odyssey, Aliens).

After graduating from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, Yates attended Columbia University School of Arts for film studies and won the first MTV Student Award for directing. He then directed for the theater in London and Los Angeles.

In 1998, he edited his first independent feature, Cleopatra’s Second Husband, and Brown’s Requiem, adapted from James Ellroy’s debut novel. In 2000, he cut the John Lithgow-starring TNT telefilm Don Quixote, one of his dad’s last directorial efforts.

He also worked on such TV series as Brothers & Sisters and Shameless and taught editing at the American Film Institute and Maine Media.

Survivors include his wife, designer Min Young Lee, whom he married in 2014; their 9-year-old son, Peter; his mother, Virginia Pope Yates, a film publicist; sister Miranda; nephew Theodore; and niece Beatrice.

Peter Yates, who earned dual directing and best picture Oscar nominations for his work on both Breaking Away (1979) and The Dresser (1983), also was known for helming Bullitt (1968), The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973), The Deep (1977) and Suspect (1987), among many other films. He died in 2011 of heart failure at age 81.