Dede Allen

Allen was born in Cleveland, Ohio. Her mother, Dorthea S. Corothers, was an actress, and her father, Thomas Humphrey Cushing Allen III, worked for Union Carbide.{{Cite web|url=http://www.filmreference.com/film/34/Dede-Allen.html|title = Dede Allen Biography (1924?-)}}

At age three, Allen and her sister Manette were placed in boarding school by their mother, who had left her marriage and moved to Europe. The next year, Allen’s father died in an automobile accident while her mother remained in Europe, leaving Allen and her sister in boarding school for another six years. After leaving boarding school, Allen stayed intermittently with her mother, and they bonded through their love of film by attending the local movie theater frequently. When not with her mother, Allen attended College Preparatory School and befriended a teacher named Ruthie Jones, who encouraged her liberal politics and acted as a maternal figure. Allen studied architecture, weaving, and pottery at Scripps College in Claremont, California, where she remained passionate about film.{{cite book |last1=Meuel |first1=David |title=Women Film Editors |publisher=McFarland & Company Inc. |pages=109–110 |url=https://womenfilmeditors.princeton.edu/assets/pdfs/ALLEN_The_Revolutionary_Meuel.pdf |access-date=17 March 2021}} She left Scripps to start a job as a messenger at Columbia Pictures.{{cite news |title=Pioneering film editor Dede Allen dead at 86 |date=April 18, 2010 |work=The Oklahoman |url=https://obits.oklahoman.com/obituaries/oklahoman/obituary.aspx?n=dede-allen&pid=141992411 }} Obituary from the Associated Press.

In 1943, in the summer after her sophomore year of college, Allen’s grandfather secured her a job with Elliot Nugent Sr. at Columbia Pictures, which had just started hiring women because of the shortage of available male employees during World War II. She worked in the position for ten months, and then was hired into the sound effects department at Columbia. While working at Columbia, Allen took classes at The Actor’s Lab in California in acting, directing, and stage managing, which helped her master the importance of proper timing in a scene.{{cite journal |last1=Gentry |first1=Ric |title=An Interview with Dede Allen |url=http://online.ucpress.edu/fq/article-pdf/46/1/12/127449/1213023.pdf |journal=Film Quarterly |date=October 1992 |volume=46 |issue=1 |pages=12–22 |publisher=University of California |doi=10.2307/1213023 |jstor=1213023 |access-date=17 March 2021 }}

In 1948, Allen married Stephen Fleischman, who was working as a screenwriter in Hollywood. With Fleischman she moved to Europe and worked as a translator for two years. They moved to New York together in 1950 and Allen worked as a script clerk, even organizing a union, and was hired as an editor for commercials and industrial films at a company called Film Graphics. She began working with Carl Lerner, a screenwriter and editor who she had worked with her first summer at Columbia.{{cite news |last1=Canby |first1=Vincent |title=Dede is a Lady Editor |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/05/14/archives/dede-is-a-lady-editor-dede-is-a-lady-editor.html |access-date=17 March 2021 |work=New York Times |date=14 May 1972}} Lerner recommended her to Robert Wise, where Allen edited her first important feature film, Odds Against Tomorrow (1959).{{cite book |last=Faller |first=Greg S. |chapter=Dede Allen |year=2000 |chapter-url=http://www.filmreference.com/Writers-and-Production-Artists-A-Ba/Allen-Dede.html |editor1-last=Pendergast |editor1-first=Tom |editor2-last=Pendergast |editor2-first=Sara |title=International Dictionary of Film and Filmmakers, Edition 4 |publisher=St. James Press |isbn=978-1-55862-449-8 |access-date=January 5, 2008 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/internationaldic0000unse_i4g6 }}

She worked closely with and was mentored by film director Robert Wise, who had also been a film editor himself (most notably having edited Orson Welles' Citizen Kane). Wise encouraged Dede Allen to be brave and experiment with her editing -- "he was the first person who said, 'No matter how many directions I give you, if it doesn't play, don't show it to me.' He was excited as hell if I came up with something. He had a great influence on me because he was a tremendous editor in his own time so he knew."{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/womencinema00rein|title=Women and the cinema : a critical anthology|date=1977|publisher=Dutton|others=Kay, Karyn., Peary, Gerald.|isbn=0525474595|edition=1st|location=New York|oclc=3315936|url-access=registration}}

Much like the raw editing of dadaist filmmaking (an approach followed by René Clair early in his career) or perhaps akin to that of the French New Wave, Allen pioneered the use of audio overlaps and utilized emotional jump cuts, stylistic flourishes that brought energy and realism to characters that until that point had not been a part of classic Hollywood film editing technique. Continuity editing and screen direction (being tied to the constraints of place and time) became the low priority, while using cutting to express the micro-cultural body language of the characters and moving the plot along in an artistic, almost three-dimensional manner became her modus operandi.{{Citation needed|date=June 2017}}

In 1992, Allen accepted the position of Vice-President in Charge of Creative Development at the Warner Bros. Studio. In 2000 she returned to editing with the film Wonder Boys, for which she was nominated for her third Academy Award.{{cite book |title=Movies in American History: An Encyclopedia, Volume 1 |editor1-first=Philip C. |editor1-last=DiMare |publisher=ABC-CLIO |date=2011 |isbn=9781598842968 |page=550 |chapter=Dede Allen |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=miascUWIa0UC&pg=PA550}}

On a 2012 listing of the 75 best edited films of all time, compiled by the Motion Picture Editors Guild based on a survey of its members, three films edited by Allen appear: Bonnie and Clyde, Dog Day Afternoon, and Reds. Only George Tomasini had more films on this listing.{{cite journal |title=The 75 Best Edited Films |journal=Editors Guild Magazine |date=May 2012 |volume=1 |issue=3 |url=https://www.editorsguild.com/magazine.cfm?ArticleID=1102 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150317101140/https://www.editorsguild.com/magazine.cfm?ArticleID=1102 |archive-date=March 17, 2015}}

Variety's Eileen Kowalski notes that, "Indeed, many of the editorial greats have been women: Dede Allen, Verna Fields, Thelma Schoonmaker, Anne V. Coates and Dorothy Spencer."{{cite journal |url=https://www.variety.com/article/VR1117855804.html?categoryid=1013&cs=1 |title=Tina Hirsch |last=Kowalski |first=Eileen |journal=Variety |date=November 14, 2001}}

Allen married director and screenwriter {{Ill |Stephen Fleischman|de}} in 1948. She and Fleischman had two children, Tom (1951) and daughter, Ramey (1953). Allen was a women’s rights activist and an advocate for unions.{{cite journal |last1=Gentry |first1=Ric |title=An Interview with Dede Allen |url=http://online.ucpress.edu/fq/article-pdf/46/1/12/127449/1213023.pdf |journal=Film Quarterly |date=October 1992 |volume=46 |issue=1 |pages=12–22 |publisher=University of California |doi=10.2307/1213023 |jstor=1213023 |access-date=17 March 2021}}

Allen died on April 17, 2010, in Los Angeles, California from a stroke. Her husband died on June 5, 2011.{{cite news |title=Stephen E. Fleischman dies at 92 |work=Variety |date=June 8, 2011 |url=https://variety.com/2011/scene/news/stephen-e-fleischman-dies-at-92-1118038294/ }}

• 1976 – Dog Day Afternoon, nominated for Academy Award, Best Editing
• 1982 – Reds, nominated for Academy Award, Best Editing (w/ co-editor Craig McKay)
• 2001 – Wonder Boys, nominated for Academy Award, Best Editing

• 1962 – The Hustler, nominated for American Cinema Editors (ACE) Eddie, Best Edited Feature Film
• 1968 – Bonnie and Clyde, nominated for American Cinema Editors (ACE) Eddie, Best Edited Feature Film
• 1975 – Dog Day Afternoon won BAFTA Film Award, Best Editing
• 1982 – Reds, nominated for American Cinema Editors (ACE) Eddie, Best Edited Feature Film (w/ co-editor Craig McKay)
• 1982 – recipient, Women in Film Crystal Award for outstanding women who, through their endurance and the excellence of their work, have helped to expand the role of women within the entertainment industry{{cite web |title=Past Recipients |url=http://wif.org/past-recipients |publisher=Women in Film |access-date=July 18, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110830035734/http://www.wif.org/past-recipients |archive-date=August 30, 2011 }}
• 1994 – honored with American Cinema Editors (ACE), Career Achievement Award
• 1999 – honored at Hollywood Film Festival, Outstanding Achievement in Music Editing
• 2000 – honored by Las Vegas Film Critics Association, Career Achievement Award
• 2005 – Scripps College Distinguished Alumna of the Year{{cite web |title=Distinguished Alumna of the Year |url=https://alumnae.scrippscollege.edu/s/783/rd/interior.aspx?sid=783&gid=1&pgid=1467 |accessdate=2021-02-13 |publisher=Scripps College}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite news |last=Carlson |first=Michael |title=Dede Allen: Pioneering film editor who worked with Sidney Lumet and Arthur Penn |date=June 3, 2010 |work=The Independent |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/dede-allen-pioneering-film-editor-who-worked-with-sidney-lumet-and-arthur-penn-1990942.html |quote=Dede Allen, who has died aged 86, was the most important film editor in the most explosive era of American film. Between Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and 1978's The Wiz, Allen edited or co-edited 11 films, all but one for Arthur Penn, George Roy Hill or Sidney Lumet, that helped redefine the way that Hollywood cut – using jump cuts, overlapping sound, and abrupt changes of pace to capture the inner qualities of characters and highlight narrative tension.}}
• {{cite book |editor1-first=Anne |editor1-last=Commire |editor2-first=Deborah |editor2-last=Klezmer |title=Women in world history : a biographical encyclopedia. Vol. 1 Aak - Azz |date=1999 |chapter=Dede Allen |publisher=Yorkin Publishing |location=Waterford, Connecticut |isbn=9780787640804 |oclc=247326732 |chapter-url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/allen-dede-1923}}
• {{cite book |last=Chang |first=Justin |author-link=Justin Chang |title=FilmCraft: Editing |publisher=Octopus Books |date=2012 |isbn=9781908150684 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SyCkCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT204 |quote=Dede Allen was the first editor, male or female, to receive a solo title card on a film—a fitting distinction for someone who made a persuasive case for film editing not merely as a technical discipline, but an art worth considering in its own right.}} A solo title card means that her name appears alone on the screen while the credits are shown; the film in question was Bonnie and Clyde (1967).
• {{cite web |title=Fellowship and Service Award -- 2008 Recipient |last=Kunkes |first=Michael |publisher=Motion Picture Editors Guild |date=2008 |url=https://www.editorsguild.com/currentrecipient.cfm }} Biography of Allen and remarks about her by many of her editing colleagues. These were compiled on the occasion of her receipt of the Motion Picture Editors' Guild "Fellowship and Service Award" in 2008.

• {{IMDb name|0020441}}

{{BAFTA Award for Best Editing 1968–1984|state=collapsed}}

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Category:1923 births

Category:2010 deaths

Category:American Cinema Editors

Category:American film editors

Category:American women film editors

Category:Artists from Cleveland

Category:Best Editing BAFTA Award winners

Category:21st-century American women