A real-life tale of starting from the bottom and working up to the top, film editor Walter Hannemann began working part-time in the MGM shipping room while still in high school, eventually rising through the ranks to edit such popular television series as the original The Fugutive.
Attending U.S.C. after high school, Hannemann found work as a sound editor at Paramount after graduation. Soon gravitating more toward work in film editing, Hannemann made his editorial debut in 1944, with Texas Masquerade. He moved into television almost two full decades later, with his work on The Fugitive in 1966 and, two years later, The Invaders. Working consistently throughout the 1970s, Hannemann cut such popular films as Smokey and the Bandit (1977), served numerous terms on the board of American Cinema Editors, and later became involved with the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motions Picture Arts and Sciences, as well as the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
In April 2001, Walter Hannemann died of natural causes in San Marcos, CA. He was 88.
