Fields, Verna (1918–1982)

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Fields, Verna (1918–1982)

American film editor . Born Verna Hellman in 1918; died in 1982; daughter of Sam Hellman (a screen-writer); married film editor Sam Fields (died 1954); children: two.

Filmography—editor:

The Savage Eye (1960); Studs Lonigan (1960); (sound editor) El Cid (1961); An Affair of the Skin (1963); (sound ed.) The Balcony (1963); Cry of Battle (1963); Nothing But a Man (1964); The Bus (1965); Country Boy (1966); Death-watch (1966); Legend of the Boy and the Eagle (1967); (sound ed.) Targets (1968); Track of Thunder (1968); The Wild Racers (1968); Medium Cool (1969); What's Up, Doc? (1972); American Graffiti (1973); Paper Moon (1973); Daisy Miller (1974); The Sugarland Express (1974); Jaws (1975).

Known as the "Mother Cutter" among her colleagues, film editor Verna Fields was the daughter of screenwriter Sam Hellman, whose credits include Little Miss Marker (1934) and My Darling Clementine (1946). Fields insisted, however, that she entered the film business purely by chance. By her own account, she was visiting a studio with a friend when she met a "cute guy" working the studio gate and started hanging around just to see him. Director Fritz Lang wondered who she was and eventually hired her as a sound apprentice. She worked for four years and got her union card before quitting to marry the same attractive fellow, Sam Fields, and start a family. When Sam died suddenly in 1954, Fields went back to work as a sound editor on television, working on such series as "Death Valley Days," "Sky King," and "Fury." In 1960, she was hired to edit the full-length feature Studs Lonigan, directed by Irving Lerner, who became her mentor. El Cid followed in 1961, for which she received a Motion Picture Sound Editing Award.

Later in the 1960s, Fields worked for the U.S. Information Agency and also taught for a year at the University of Southern California, where she hired a young student by the name of George Lucas. (She did the final edit on Lucas' American Graffiti in 1973.) Fields went on to edit Steven Spielberg's first film, The Sugarland Express (1974), and worked with the director again on his breakthrough film Jaws (1975). At one point, Fields had a hand in saving the movie. "I was the liaison with the studio for Steven," she explained. "When there was thought of ditching the picture because the shark wasn't working, I told them, 'Keep doing it, even if you need to use miniatures.'" For her work on Jaws, Fields won an Academy Award and a new job as Universal's vice president in charge of feature productions, a post she held until her death in 1982.