Chris Willingham, who gained three Emmys as editor of Fox’s 24, labored on such hit reveals as The X-Information and Millennium and was Stephen J. Cannell’s go-to cutter on collection starting from The A-Staff and Hunter to 21 Leap Avenue, has died. He was 74.
A rep for his household stated he died June 28 of a coronary heart assault at his Los Angeles dwelling.
Willingham editor dozens of TV collection throughout his almost 40-year profession, beginning out with episodes of B.J. and the Bear and The Biggest American Hero. His work on the latter received prolific collection creator Cannell’s consideration and landed him a extra common gig on the Eighties NBC motion collection The A-Staff. He edited greater than 25 episodes of the present starring George Peppard and Mr. T, engaged on all 5 its seasons.
His work with Cannell continued on the Fred Dryer-led cop drama Hunter, together with J.J. Starbuck, Hawkeye, Stingray Avenue Justice and 21 Leap Avenue.
Willingham met his future spouse, Lynne — later a two-time Emmy-winning editor on Breaking Dangerous — whereas each had been at Stephen J. Cannell Productions. They labored collectively on The X-Information and different reveals together with miniseries Empire and The Son till Cannell’s studio closed within the mid-’90s.
“Chris was an intuitive editor,” Lynne Willingham stated in an announcement. “He was a gifted storyteller. His pacing and decisions had been extremely stunning. You possibly can inform when watching a collection if it was his episode. He was simply all the time in the precise place on the proper time. You possibly can’t actually educate that. He was humorous and sensible and I used to be so very fortunate to have him not solely as my fantastic husband however as my inventive associate. We had been an excellent staff.”
She added that her husband as soon as stated: “We had a producer, David Levinson, who liked that he had a married couple working for him. He thought that we had been usually speaking in regards to the present even once we had been dwelling. Kicking round concepts for the minimize with one another. And he was proper. If one in all us had one thing that wasn’t working for us, we’d run it previous one another. It was nice having one other editor that you simply trusted to bounce off of.”
Chris Willingham’s greatest gig was on 24, the 2001-10 real-time spy drama that starred Keifer Sutherland as Jack Bauer. Willingham edited greater than 25 episodes of the collection, successful back-to-back-to-back Emmys from 2002-04 and scoring nominations for a unique 2003 episode and once more in 2005. He additionally was a three-time ACE Eddie Award nominee for the present.
Willingham later edited a couple of third of Grimm‘s 120-plus episodes from 2011-17.
Alongside the best way, he additionally was movie editor for a handful of big-screen titles together with Closing Vacation spot 3 (2005), Black Christmas (2006) and Dragonball Evolution (2009).
Previous to his profession as an editor, Willingham served within the Navy as a submariner earlier than touchdown a job within the film-shipping division at KHJ-TV Los Angeles, working his approach up into the information division. In 1978, he moved over to Common Movie Studios as an assistant movie editor.
Willingham’s former assistant, Jim Thomson, as soon as requested him what an important factor about modifying was, and he replied, “There are three essential issues in modifying: story, story, story.”
Alongside along with his spouse of 37 years, Willingham is survived by his daughters Lisa and Julia; son-in-law, David; and granddaughters Ella, Avery and Hollyn. In lieu of flowers, the household asks that individuals please donate to their favourite animal rescue in his reminiscence.
