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Dennis Virkler, a two-time Oscar-nominated editor who worked on such prominent actions films as The Hunt for Red October, The Fugitive and multiple entries in the Batman franchise, has died. He was 80.
Virkler passed away from heart failure on Sept. 15, his wife Helen Pollak announced. Among those sharing remembrances was director Andrew Davis, who worked with Virkler on five films, including Under Siege (1992), The Fugitive (1993), A Perfect Murder (1998) and Collateral Damage (2002).
“Dennis came in on a Saturday morning and blew us away Monday with a great cut for the opening of The Fugitive,” Davis said in a statement. “Besides the editorial teams he mentored, the sound and visual effects teams who worked alongside Dennis revered his taste and knowledge.”
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Virkler, who has more than 40 credits, was an elected member of the American Cinema Editors. The Fugitive, which earned him Oscar, BAFTA and ACE Eddie nominations, was named the 39th best-edited film in history by a 2012 survey from the Motion Picture Editors Guild.
Born in Cleveland on Nov. 23, 1941, his family moved to Santa Monica when he was 4. He struggled in high school and joined the Air Force, after which he took a job as a night guard at Fox Studios. Virkler then became a teamster and would drive the dailies to the studio until eventually enrolling in the Editors Guild’s apprenticeship program.
He got his start on genre films in the 1970s before going on to edit titles including The Bad News Bears Go to Japan (1978), Xanadu (1980), Airplane II: The Sequel (1982) and The River Rat (1984), which featured a starring role for Tommy Lee Jones, who would later win the Oscar for The Fugitive.
Virkler’s first Academy Award nomination came as one of three nods for filmmaker John McTiernan’s Tom Clancy adaptation The Hunt for Red October (1990) that starred Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin.
The editor was also known for his work in the superhero genre, with credits on Batman Forever (1995), Batman & Robin (1997) and the Ben Affleck flick Daredevil (2003).
Other more recent work includes Vin Diesel vehicle The Chronicles of Riddick (2004), Rob Zombie-directed Halloween (2007), Nicolas Cage thriller Bangkok Dangerous (2008) and the Benicio del Toro-Anthony Hopkins monster project The Wolfman (2010). Virkler’s career spanned five decades, with his final credit coming in 2017 on romantic drama The Ottoman Lieutenant, which included Josh Hartnett and Ben Kingsley among its cast.
Virkler is survived by Pollak, his partner of 39 years; son Wilson Virkler; and a sister and brother.
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