Obituary: Russell Lloyd: John Huston's film editor, who began his career with Korda

INDEPENDENT
Friday, 25 January 2008

Russell Lloyd would always say that he was practically born into the film industry: "My mother's labour pains started on a Saturday night while at the local cinema near Swansea in Wales. I was born Sunday morning." One of Britain's most respected film editors, Lloyd amassed nearly 50 feature editing credits, including 11 for the director John Huston. Lloyd's Academy Award nomination for Huston's The Man Who Would Be King (1975) crowned a career which had begun in the great days of Alexander Korda.

Obsessed with the cinema from an early age, Lloyd ended his schooling at Bradfield College in Berkshire and then worked for almost a year as a projectionist in Swansea. He bombarded British film studios with letters applying for any position in the camera department and eventually received a telegram from Korda's production executive at London Films, David Cunynghame, inviting him to report to Elstree and offering him work as a "numbering boy"
synchronising film rushes under the cutting-room head Harold Young. As Lloyd later reported: "You could imagine my dismay

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