Diane Adler, Trailblazing Film Editor of 'The Rockford
Files,' Dies at 97
The Hollywood Reporter
By Carolyn Giardina
April 23, 2021
She also worked on
other shows like 'Kojak' and 'Spenser: For Hire' and films including 'El
Dorado' and The Presidio.'
Diane Adler, the
pioneering film editor who spent five seasons on The Rockford Files and
cut other TV series including Kojak, Spenser: For Hire and Riptide,
has died. She was 97.
Adler died Thursday
in Los Angeles, her family announced.
A beloved member of
the American Cinema Editors and the Motion Picture Editors Guild, Adler for two
decades spearheaded ACE and MPEG's Invisible Art/Visible Artists program and
luncheon, held the day before the Oscars with the film editing nominees.
The program is slated
to be held Saturday in a virtual environment because of the pandemic.
A Los Angeles native,
Adler made a name for herself in the field of editing at a time when it was
dominated by men. She entered the business in the '50s, when she was recently
divorced, in order to earn enough money to send her son and daughter to
college. That began with a job as a secretary making $115 a week at Bronson
Studios in Hollywood.
After Bronson, she
moved to Ziv Productions. “My boss [Don Tait] left Ziv and went to 20th Century
Fox when they were just starting up their TV division. He called me up one day
and said, 'We need someone who can cut commercials into the TV shows,'"
Adler said in an interview published in the 2015 ACE Eddie Awards program, the
year she received its
prestigious Career Achievement Award.
"I had never
touched film before but I had seen what the guys had been doing. The only other
females at the Ziv editorial department were the librarian and one assistant.”
Her next few jobs
included stints at Four Star Productions and Paramount Pictures working
with editors such as John Woodcock, whom she assisted on the John
Wayne-starring El Dorado (1967), directed by Howard Hawks. She then
landed a job at Warner Bros. assisting on The Bill Cosby Show and
was promoted to editor three months later.
Adler also edited
such acclaimed '70s telefilms as The Girl Most Likely to ..., starring
Stockard Channing; Thursday's Game, starring Gene Wilder; and Huckleberry
Finn, starring Ron Howard, before landing on Telly Savalas' Kojak.
She joined The
Rockford Files in 1975 and stayed with that show to its 1979 conclusion and
worked with series star James Garner on the 1978 telefilm The New Maverick
and the 1981-82 series Bret Maverick.
"They just don’t
make actors like James Garner anymore," she said in her Eddies interview.
"He was a wonderful human being and an aw-shucks kind of guy. What you saw
on the screen was what he gave you in life.”
Her TV résumé also
included Hunter, The Rousters, She’s in the
Army Now and Wild Jack.
In addition to her
years of service to ACE, she was an active member of the Editors Guild for more
than a half-century. She joined the board in 1983 and in 1992 was elected
secretary — a role she held until she retired in 2018. The guild honored her
with a special service award at its 85th anniversary event in 2012.
She is survived by
her children, Carol and Gary, and their families. In lieu of
flowers, donations can be made to the Motion Picture Television Fund.
"I had more fun,
I loved working, I looked forward to getting up every morning and going to
work," she said after receiving her ACE achievement award. "So many
people can't say that."
ADLER, Diane
Born: 1924, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.
Died: 4/22/2021, Los Angeles, California,
U.S.A.
Diane Adler’s
westerns – film editor:
El Dorado - 1966
The New Maverick (TV)
– 1978
Bret Maverick (TV) –
1981-1982
