RIP Frank E. Warner

Sound man Frank Warner dies

Won Oscar for 'Close Encounters'

Legendary sound designer Frank Edward Warner, who won an Oscar for Close Encounters of the Third Kind, has died. He died of natural causes at the age of 85 in Sedona, Arizona, on August 31, 2011. Warner edited television and film before drawing his first credit as a supervising sound editor on "Hell in the Pacific". He went on to work on more than 60 movies, including "Taxi Driver", "Rocky II", "Rocky III", "Rocky IV", "Raging Bull" and "Spartacus". In 1978, he picked up an Academy Award for the sound effects on Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and he won a lifetime achievement award from the Motion Picture Sound Editors in 1988. He is survived by his wife, Theodosia Greene, a son, daughter and three grandchildren.

Frank E. Warner was sound editor on two Euro-westerns: "Cannon for Cordoba" (1970) and "The Spikes Gang" (1974).