Tom Priestley Cause of Death, Oscar-Nominated Film Editor on ‘Deliverance,’
Tom Priestley, the British film editor who landed an Oscar nomination for John Boorman’s Deliverance, has passed away at the age of 91. He was the son of renowned British playwright J.B. Priestley, who wrote the classic 1945 drama An Inspector Calls and served as a BBC Radio broadcaster during the Dunkirk evacuation of World War II. Deliverance became the fifth-highest grossing film of the year at the U.S. box office in 1972, earning nominations for best picture, director, and film editing.
Priestley also edited other movies helmed by Boorman, such as Leo the Last (1970), Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Great Gatsby (1974), Blake Edwards’ The Return of the Pink Panther (1975), That Lucky Touch (1975), Voyage of the Damned (1976), featuring an all-star cast, and Roman Polanski’s Tess (1979).
Deliverance was an adaptation of James Dickey’s 1970 novel of the same name. As a lieutenant in the Pacific War, the author read J.B. Priestley’s Midnight on the Desert on the journey home in 1946 and was moved by that book’s themes of coincidence and dreams. During the filming of Deliverance, Dickey was invited into the makeshift editing suite at the Heart of Rabun Motel in Clayton, Georgia, unaware that the cutter next to him was J.B.’s son.
Priestley screened portions of the movie for James Dickey, who had a cameo as a sheriff. Priestley said that his character had a line in the final scenes — ‘I’d kinda like this place to die peaceful’ — which he thinks is the best in the whole film.
At its Atlanta premiere, then-Gov. Jimmy Carter was in attendance and remarked after the lights went up, “It’s pretty rough. But it’s good for Georgia … I hope.”
Born in London on April 22, 1932, Priestley studied at Cambridge University and had his interest in cinema piqued when he attended screenings hosted by legendary film critic Leslie Halliwell at the Rex Cinema in Leytonstone. He also was sound editor on Polanski’s first English-language film, Repulsion (1965).
Early film-editing gigs included Whistle Down the Wind (1961), Waltz of the Toreadors (1962), This Sporting Life (1962), Morgan! 1966) and Isadora (1968), both helmed by Karel Reisz; and one of history’s longest film titles — The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade (1967), directed by Peter Brook.
Tom Priestley, the British film editor whose work assembling the dueling-banjos sequence and hellish “squeal like a pig” attack in John Boorman’s Deliverance landed him an Oscar nomination, has died. He was 91. His death on Christmas Day was only recently revealed. Priestley also cut two other movies helmed by Boorman: Leo the Last (1970), which won the best director award at the Cannes Film Festival, and Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977). He also edited The Great Gatsby (1974); Blake Edwards’ The Return of the Pink Panther (1975); That Lucky Touch (1975), starring Roger Moore; Voyage of the Damned (1976), featuring an all-star cast; and Roman Polanski’s Tess (1979). Rest in Peace Tom!read more:Celie Rain Montgomery and Samuel Knopp Die in a Campus shooting incident
One of Priestley’s last jobs came on Michael Radford’s 1984, an adaptation of George Orwell’s 1949 dystopian novel. In another peculiar coincidence, J.B. Priestley’s name had been on Orwell’s list of suspected communist sympathizers that was sent to the propaganda unit of the British Foreign Office.
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