# Anne V. Coates

Anne Voase Coates OBE (12 December 1925 – 8 May 2018) was a British film editor with a more than 60-year-long career.
She was perhaps best known as the editor of David Lean's epic film Lawrence of Arabia (1962), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Film Editing. Coates was also Oscar-nominated for Becket (1963), The Elephant Man (1980), In the Line of Fire (1993) and Out of Sight (1998).

## Early life and education

Coates was born in Reigate, Surrey, England, the daughter of Kathleen Voase (née Rank) and Major Laurence Calvert Coates. Her first passion was horses. As a girl, she thought she might become a race-horse trainer.
Coates attended the Reigate village school called the Micklefield School. She then attended High Trees School in Horley (Surrey). Her final school was Bartrum Gables in Broadstairs (Kent).
Before becoming a film editor, she worked as a nurse at Sir Archibald McIndoe's pioneering plastic surgery hospital in East Grinstead, England.

## Career

Coates became interested in cinema after seeing Wuthering Heights (1939) directed by William Wyler. She decided to pursue film directing and started working as an assistant at a production company specializing in religious films (also doing projectionist and sound recording work). There she fixed film prints of religious short films before sending them to various British church tours. This splicing work eventually led to the rare job as an assistant film editor at Pinewood Studios, where she worked on various films. Her first experience was assisting for film editor Reggie Mills.
Coates later worked with film director David Lean on Lawrence of Arabia. She had a long and varied career, and continued to edit films, including Out of Sight and Erin Brockovich (both for Steven Soderbergh). Coates was a member of both the Guild of British Film and Television Editors (GBFTE) and American Cinema Editors (ACE).
Variety's Eileen Kowalski noted "many of the editorial greats have been women: Margaret Booth, Dede Allen, Verna Fields, Thelma Schoonmaker, Anne V. Coates and Dorothy Spencer."

## Personal life
### Marriage and family

Coates was at the centre of a film industry family. Besides being the niece of J. Arthur Rank, she was married to the director Douglas Hickox for many years. Her brother, John Coates, was a producer (The Snowman and Yellow Submarine). Her sons, Anthony Hickox (1959-2023) and James Hickox (b. 1965) were film directors. Her daughter Emma E. Hickox (b. 1964) is a film editor.

### Death

Coates died on 8 May 2018, aged 92, at the Motion Picture Country Home and Hospital, Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, United States.

## Filmography
### Film

| Year | Project | Director | Notes |
| 1947 | The End of the River | | Second editor (uncredited) |
| 1949 | The History of Mr. Polly | | assistant editor (uncredited) |
| 1952 | The Pickwick Papers | Noel Langley | |
| 1953 | Grand National Night | Bob McNaught | |
| 1954 | Forbidden Cargo | Harold French | |
| 1955 | To Paris with Love | Robert Hamer | |
| 1956 | Lost | Guy Green | |
| 1957 | The Truth About Women | Muriel Box | |
| 1958 | The Horse's Mouth | Ronald Neame | |
| 1960 | Tunes of Glory | Ronald Neame | |
| 1961 | Don't Bother to Knock | Cyril Frankel | |
| 1962 | Lawrence of Arabia | David Lean | |
| 1964 | Becket | Peter Glenville | |
| 1965 | Young Cassidy | Jack Cardiff / John Ford | |
| 1965 | Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines | Ken Annakin | |
| 1966 | Hotel Paradiso | Peter Glenville | |
| 1968 | Great Catherine | Gordon Flemyng | |
| 1970 | The Adventurers | Lewis Gilbert | |
| 1971 | Friends | Lewis Gilbert | |
| 1972 | Follow Me! | Carol Reed | |
| 1973 | Bequest to the Nation | James Cellan Jones | |
| 1974 | 11 Harrowhouse | Aram Avakian | |
| 1974 | Murder on the Orient Express | Sidney Lumet | |
| 1975 | Man Friday | Jack Gold | |
| 1976 | Aces High | Jack Gold | |
| 1976 | The Eagle Has Landed | John Sturges | |
| 1978 | The Legacy | Richard Marquand | |
| 1980 | The Elephant Man | David Lynch | |
| 1981 | The Bushido Blade | Tom Kotani | Supervising editor with Yoshitami Kuroiwa |
| 1981 | Ragtime | Milos Forman | |
| 1983 | The Pirates of Penzance | Wilford Leach | |
| 1984 | Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes | Hugh Hudson | |
| 1986 | Lady Jane | Trevor Nunn | |
| 1986 | Raw Deal | John Irvin | |
| 1987 | Masters of the Universe | Gary Goddard | |
| 1989 | Lawrence of Arabia | David Lean | Restoration of 1962 film |
| 1989 | Farewell to the King | John Milius | |
| 1989 | Listen to Me | Douglas Day Stewart | |
| 1990 | I Love You to Death | Lawrence Kasdan | |
| 1991 | What About Bob? | Frank Oz | |
| 1992 | Chaplin | Richard Attenborough | |
| 1993 | In the Line of Fire | Wolfgang Petersen | |
| 1994 | Pontiac Moon | Peter Medak | |
| 1995 | Congo | Frank Marshall | |
| 1996 | Striptease | Andrew Bergman | |
| 1997 | Out to Sea | Martha Coolidge | |
| 1998 | Out of Sight | Steven Soderbergh | |
| 2000 | Erin Brockovich | Steven Soderbergh | |
| 2000 | Passion of Mind | Alain Berliner | |
| 2001 | Sweet November | Pat O'Connor | |
| 2002 | Unfaithful | Adrian Lyne | |
| 2004 | Taking Lives | D.J. Caruso | |
| 2006 | Catch and Release | Susannah Grant | |
| 2007 | The Golden Compass | Chris Weitz | |
| 2010 | Extraordinary Measures | Tom Vaughan | |
| 2015 | Fifty Shades of Grey | Sam Taylor-Johnson | |

### Television

| Year | Project | Notes |
| 1972 | A War of Children | Television movie |
| 1973 | ITV Saturday Night Theatre | Episode: "Catholics" |
| 2000 | Fail Safe | Television movie |

## Style and recognition

In an industry where women accounted for only 16 per cent of all editors working on the top 250 films of 2004, and 80 per cent of the films had absolutely no women on their editing teams at all, Coates thrived as a top film editor. She was awarded BAFTA's highest honour, a BAFTA Fellowship, in February 2007 and was given an Academy Honorary Award, which are popularly known as a Lifetime Achievement Oscar, in November 2016 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Over the course of her career she has stated her style as being:
* "In a way, I've never looked at myself as a woman in the business. I've just looked at myself as an editor. I mean, I'm sure I've been turned down because I'm a woman, but then other times I've been used because they wanted a woman editor."
* "...I guess I've been lucky that most of the time I've been in the same direction as the director. I try to work with directors whose work I like and find interesting. When I was younger, I had to find work where I could, and I had some not great experiences with directors."
* "You have the courage of your convictions. When you're editing you have to make thousands of decisions every day and if you dither over them all the time, you'll never get anything done."
* "I seem to get the rhythm from the performances. I like to feel I'm very much an actor's editor. I look very much to the performances and cut very much for performances rather than the action. I think that's important, what's in the eyes of the actor."

## Awards and nominations

| Award | Year | Category | Project | Result |
| Academy Award | 1962 | Best Film Editing | Lawrence of Arabia | Won |
| Academy Award | 1964 | Best Film Editing | Becket | Nominated |
| Academy Award | 1980 | Best Film Editing | The Elephant Man | Nominated |
| Academy Award | 1993 | Best Film Editing | In the Line of Fire | Nominated |
| Academy Award | 1999 | Best Film Editing | Out of Sight | Nominated |
| Academy Award | 2017 | Academy Honorary Award | Academy Honorary Award | Honored |
| BAFTA Awards | 1975 | BAFTA Award for Best Editing | Murder on the Orient Express | Nominated |
| BAFTA Awards | 1981 | BAFTA Award for Best Editing | The Elephant Man | Nominated |
| BAFTA Awards | 1993 | BAFTA Award for Best Editing | In the Line of Fire | Nominated |
| BAFTA Awards | 2001 | BAFTA Award for Best Editing | Erin Brockovich | Nominated |
| BAFTA Awards | 2007 | BAFTA Fellowship | BAFTA Fellowship | Honored |
| American Cinema Editors | 1963 | Best Edited Feature Film | Lawrence of Arabia | Nominated |
| American Cinema Editors | 1965 | Best Edited Feature Film | Becket | Nominated |
| American Cinema Editors | 1994 | Best Edited Feature Film | In the Line of Fire | Nominated |
| American Cinema Editors | 1995 | Career Achievement Award | Career Achievement Award | Honored |
| American Cinema Editors | 1998 | Best Edited Feature Film | Out of Sight | Nominated |
* 1997: Women in Film Crystal Award, International Award
* 1999: Online Film Critics Society Award, Best Film Editing (nominee) for Out of Sight
* 2012: Motion Picture Editors Guild, best edited films of all time for Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Out of Sight (1998)