Michael Kahn

Without the skills of veteran editor Michael Kahn, many of the top films of the late 20th and early 21st centuries wouldn't run as smoothly as they do. A longtime collaborator of celebrated producer/director Steven Spielberg, Kahn was notable for continuing to edit on his beloved medium of film rather than digitally, as became the norm in Hollywood. This worked out quite well for him, as he garnered a raft of Oscar nominations for his work in movies. Kahn's impressive and long list of credits started with TV, specifically several episodes of "The Bill Dana Show" (1964), starring the title actor as a bellhop in a spinoff of the popular sitcom "The Danny Thomas Show" ('53). Starting in '69, the editor began cutting movies, gradually moving up the chain to high-budget productions. His first prominent movie was "The Trial of Billy Jack," the '74 entry in the popular martial arts revenge series. He first collaborated with Spielberg on the director's '77 alien visitation hit, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," for which he garnered his first Oscar nomination. From that time, Kahn was one of Hollywood's busiest editors. Some of the many hit films he cut were Spielberg's Holocaust drama "Schindler's List" ('93) and the popular '81 adventure saga "Raiders of the Lost Ark," for which he won his first Oscar.