Samuel Alexander O'Steen (November 6, 1923 – October 11, 2000) was an American film editor and director. He had an extended, notable collaboration with the director Mike Nichols, with whom he edited twelve films between 1966 and 1994. Among the notable films that O'Steen edited were Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (directed by Mike Nichols, 1966), Cool Hand Luke (directed by Stuart Rosenberg, 1967), The Graduate (directed by Mike Nichols, 1967), R...
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Samuel Alexander O'Steen (November 6, 1923 – October 11, 2000) was an American film editor and director. He had an extended, notable collaboration with the director Mike Nichols, with whom he edited twelve films between 1966 and 1994. Among the notable films that O'Steen edited were Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (directed by Mike Nichols, 1966), Cool Hand Luke (directed by Stuart Rosenberg, 1967), The Graduate (directed by Mike Nichols, 1967), Rosemary's Baby (directed by Roman Polanski, 1968), and Chinatown (directed by Roman Polanski, 1974).
As a child in Burbank, California, O'Steen would try to make it onto the Warner Bros. lot hoping that it could be an entree to work in the editing room. O'Steen was finally able to secure a position as an assistant editor in 1956, when he became George Tomasini's assistant editor on Alfred Hitchcock's 1957 film The Wrong Man. As was typical at the time, he served as an assistant editor at Warner Brothers for eight years; his first credit as...
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