John F. Burnett obit

John F. Burnett, Film Editor on ‘Grease,’ ‘The Goodbye Girl’ and ‘The Way We Were,’ Dies at 90

He collaborated with George Cukor, Blake Edwards and Herbert Ross, won an Emmy and served as president of the Motion Picture Editors Guild. 

He was not on the list.

John F. Burnett, the veteran film editor who cut Grease, And Justice for All and Murder by Death and films for directors George Cukor, Blake Edwards and Sydney Pollack, has died. He was 90.

Burnett died Oct. 24 of natural causes in Lincoln, California, his son, cinematographer and producer John Earl Burnett, told The Hollywood Reporter. He said he chose not to disclose the news of his death until now for “personal family reasons.”

Burnett also worked with directors Robert Ellis Miller on The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968), The Girl From Petrovka (1974) and Bed & Breakfast (1991) and with Herbert Ross on The Owl and the Pussycat (1970), The Sunshine Boys (1975) and The Goodbye Girl (1977).

He edited two sweeping ABC miniseries adapted from epic novels by Herman Wouk, 1983’s The Winds of War and 1990’s War and Remembrance, winning an Emmy (shared with Peter Zinner) for the latter.

Burnett got his start at Warner Bros., and after coming in on weekends to help Cukor on The Chapman Report (1962), he assisted editor Bill Ziegler on Cukor’s My Fair Lady (1964) and edited the Katharine Hepburn– and Laurence Olivier-starring 1975 ABC telefilm Love Among the Ruins and Rich and Famous (1981), Cukor’s final film.

Burnett also cut Edwards’ The Great Race (1965), Wild Rovers (1971) and A Fine Mess (1986); Pollack’s The Way We Were (1973); Norman Jewison’s And Justice for All (1979); Robert Moore’s Murder by Death (1976); Randal Kleiser’s Grease (1978); and Richard Pearce’s Leap of Faith (1992).

“He would take what a director gave him — and Cukor gave him thousands of thousands of feet a day because he did everything from the top — and he just had this way of putting it together,” his son told CineMontage magazine.

Burnett also served as president of the Motion Picture Editors Guild from 1975-76 and received a career achievement award from the American Cinema Editors in 2003.

John Forbes Burnett was born on March 5, 1934, in Kansas City, Missouri. When he was young, he and the family moved to Southern California, where his father, Gilbert, was an engineer at the Lockheed Corp.

After graduating from John Burroughs High School, Burnett landed a job as a messenger at Warner Bros., and following a 1952-54 stint in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, he was hired as an assistant film editor on Billy Wilder’s The Spirit of St. Louis (1957).

He then worked on The Helen Morgan Story (1957), The FBI Story (1959), Mervyn LeRoy’s Gypsy (1962), The Music Man (1962) and Mike Nichols’ Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) before getting his first (non-assistant) editor credit on The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, starring Alan Arkin and Sondra Locke.

Miller signed him to a multi-picture deal but would release him from the contract so he could work for other filmmakers

Burnett’s editing résumé included The Culpepper Cattle Co. (1972), Can’t Stop the Music (1980), Grease 2 (1982) and Leviathan (1989). He also was an editor and producer on the 1995-97 syndicated TV series Baywatch Nights and a producer on the 1995 PTEN show Pointman, starring Jack Scalia.

As MPEG president, Burnett oversaw contract negotiations that resulted in what was at the time the largest wage increase in IATSE history, his son said. Those talks resulted in editors receiving single-card, up-front credits on features as well.

For the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, he served on the board of governors from 1975-85 and as executive secretary from 1983-84. He also created a film editing course for the AFI and taught there for several years.

In 2000, Burnett retired from Hollywood and, after 43 years, as a reserve commander with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. In Lincoln, he owned a 20-acre ranch.

Survivors include another son, Stephen, and his brother, David. He was predeceased by wives Rosemarie in 1998 and Margie in 2018.

Producer

Baywatch Nights (1995)

Baywatch Nights

3.8

TV Series

producer (1996-1997)

1995–1997

44 episodes

 

Jack Scalia in Pointman (1995)

Pointman

7.2

TV Series

co-producer

co-executive producer

1995

21 episodes

 

Editor

Baywatch Nights (1995)

Baywatch Nights

3.8

TV Series

Editor

1996–1997

10 episodes

 

Pointman (1994)

Pointman

5.6

TV Movie

Editor

1994

 

Killer Rules (1993)

Killer Rules

5.0

TV Movie

Editor

1993

 

Leap of Faith (1992)

Leap of Faith

6.1

Editor

1992

 

Christopher Martin and Christopher Reid in Class Act (1992)

Class Act

6.1

Editor

1992

 

Bed & Breakfast (1991)

Bed & Breakfast

5.4

Editor

1991

 

Mimi Rogers and Mark Harmon in Fourth Story (1991)

Fourth Story

5.9

TV Movie

Editor

1991

 

War and Remembrance (1988)

War and Remembrance

8.3

TV Mini Series

Editor

1988–1989

12 episodes

 

Leviathan (1989)

Leviathan

5.8

Editor

1989

 

A Fine Mess (1986)

A Fine Mess

4.7

Editor

1986

 

Between Two Women (1986)

Between Two Women

6.8

TV Movie

Editor

1986

 

Drew Barrymore, Shelley Long, and Ryan O'Neal in Irreconcilable Differences (1984)

Irreconcilable Differences

5.8

Editor

1984

 

Robert Mitchum, Jan-Michael Vincent, John Houseman, David Dukes, and Ali MacGraw in The Winds of War (1983)

The Winds of War

8.1

TV Mini Series

Editor

1983

7 episodes

 

Michelle Pfeiffer and Maxwell Caulfield in Grease 2 (1982)

Grease 2

4.6

Editor

1982

 

Candice Bergen and Jacqueline Bisset in Rich and Famous (1981)

Rich and Famous

5.8

Editor

1981

 

Charles Bronson, Angie Dickinson, and Lee Marvin in Death Hunt (1981)

Death Hunt

6.9

Editor

1981

 

Steve Guttenberg, Alex Briley, David Hodo, Glenn Hughes, Caitlyn Jenner, Randy Jones, Valerie Perrine, Felipe Rose, Ray Simpson, and The Village People in Can't Stop the Music (1980)

Can't Stop the Music

4.3

Editor

1980

 

Al Pacino in And Justice for All (1979)

And Justice for All

7.4

Editor

1979

 

John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John in Grease (1978)

Grease

7.2

Editor

1978

 

Richard Dreyfuss and Marsha Mason in The Goodbye Girl (1977)

The Goodbye Girl

7.4

Editor

1977

 

Candice Bergen and Gene Hackman in The Domino Principle (1977)

The Domino Principle

5.7

Editor

1977

 

Murder by Death (1976)

Murder by Death

7.3

Editor

1976

 

The Sunshine Boys (1975)

The Sunshine Boys

7.1

Editor

1975

 

Promise Him Anything (1975)

Promise Him Anything

4.4

TV Movie

Editor

1975

 

Love Among the Ruins (1975)

Love Among the Ruins

7.7

TV Movie

Editor

1975

 

Goldie Hawn and Hal Holbrook in The Girl from Petrovka (1974)

The Girl from Petrovka

5.2

Editor

1974

 

The Way We Were (1973)

The Way We Were

7.0

Editor

1973

 

The Culpepper Cattle Co. (1972)

The Culpepper Cattle Co.

6.9

Editor (as John Burnett)

1972

 

William Holden and Ryan O'Neal in Wild Rovers (1971)

Wild Rovers

6.5

Editor

1971

 

Barbra Streisand and George Segal in The Owl and the Pussycat (1970)

The Owl and the Pussycat

6.4

film editor

1970

 

Ernest Borgnine, Tony Curtis, Brian Keith, Ivan Dixon, Tom Ewell, and Suzanne Pleshette in Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came (1970)

Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came

5.4

Editor

1970

 

Alan Arkin and Sondra Locke in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968)

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

7.6

film editor

1968

 

Editorial Department

Not of This World (1991)

Not of This World

4.9

TV Movie

supervising editor

1991

 

River Phoenix and Molly Ringwald in Surviving (1985)

Surviving

7.4

TV Movie

supervising editor

1985

 

John Travolta in Staying Alive (1983)

Staying Alive

4.8

editor

1983

 

John Travolta and Lily Tomlin in Moment by Moment (1978)

Moment by Moment

3.2

supervising film editor

1978

 

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

8.0

assistant editor (uncredited)

1966

 

Natalie Wood, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon in The Great Race (1965)

The Great Race

7.2

additional editor (uncredited)

1965

 

My Fair Lady (1964)

My Fair Lady

7.7

assistant editor (uncredited)

1964

 

Natalie Wood, Karl Malden, and Rosalind Russell in Gypsy (1962)

Gypsy

7.1

assistant editor (uncredited)

1962

 

Buddy Hackett, Paul Ford, Hermione Gingold, Shirley Jones, Pert Kelton, and Robert Preston in The Music Man (1962)

The Music Man

7.7

assistant editor (uncredited)

1962

 

Jane Fonda and Anthony Perkins in Tall Story (1960)

Tall Story

5.9

assistant editor (uncredited)

1960

 

Cash McCall (1960)

Cash McCall

6.3

assistant editor (uncredited)

1960

 

James Stewart and Vera Miles in The FBI Story (1959)

The FBI Story

6.5

assistant editor (uncredited)

1959

 

Clint Walker in Fort Dobbs (1958)

Fort Dobbs

6.8

assistant editor (uncredited)

1958

 

Paul Newman and Ann Blyth in The Helen Morgan Story (1957)

The Helen Morgan Story

6.3

assistant editor (uncredited)

1957

 

James Stewart in The Spirit of St. Louis (1957)

The Spirit of St. Louis

7.1

assistant editor (uncredited)

1957

 

Thanks

Allan Carr in The Fabulous Allan Carr (2017)

The Fabulous Allan Carr

7.6

special thanks

2017

 

Traveller (1997)

Traveller

6.1

thanks (as John Burnett)

1997

 

Self

My Fair Lady (1964)

The Making of 'My Fair Lady'

7.3

Video

Self (as John Burnett)

1995