Biography
William Hornbeck (1901–1983) was an American film editor. He began his career in his teens as a laboratory assistant and editor at Mack Sennett’s Keystone studios in Los Angeles, later becoming head of the editing department for Sennett comedies.
In 1934 he moved to England as supervising editor for Alexander Korda’s London Films, working on titles including The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934), Things to Come (1936) and The Thief of Bagdad (1940). During the Second World War he served in the US Army Signal Corps, editing the Why We Fight documentary series under Frank Capra. After the war he edited Capra’s It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and went on to cut A Place in the Sun (1951), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Film Editing, Shane (1953), Giant (1956) and I Want to Live! (1958).
From 1960 he held senior editorial and executive positions at Universal Pictures until his retirement in 1976. In 1977 a poll of film editors named him the best the industry had produced; he was also an original member of the American Cinema Editors.
