Anne V. Coates

Coates was born in Reigate, Surrey, England, the daughter of Kathleen Voase (Rank) and Major Laurence Calvert Coates. Her first passion was horses. As a girl, she thought she might become a race-horse trainer. A graduate of Bartrum Gables College, before becoming a film editor, Anne Coates served as a nurse at Sir Archibald McIndoe's pioneering plastic surgery hospital in East Grinstead, UK. Anne is Godmother to Samuel and Thomas Moore, son of Patrick Moore. Coates decided to pursue film directing and started out 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 out 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. Anne V. Coates later worked with film director David Lean on Lawrence of Arabia. Coates has had a long and varied career, seemingly refusing to retire and she continues to edit films such as Out of Sight and Erin Brockovich for iconoclastic film director, Steven Soderbergh. Coates is a member of both the Guild of British Film and Television Editors(GBFTE) and American Cinema Editors (ACE).

Variety's Eileen Kowalski notes that "Indeed, many of the editorial greats have been women: Margaret Booth, Dede Allen, Verna Fields, Thelma Schoonmaker, Anne V. Coates and Dorothy Spencer."

Coates is 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), and her two sons, oldest Anthony Hickox (b. 1959) and youngest James D.R. Hickox (b. 1965) used to be directors, whilst her daughter Emma E. Hickox (b. 1964) is also a film editor.

• "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."
• "I like having a little edge with the director – you know, discussions and arguments. I think that's what editors are partly there for, like a sounding board. When I first worked on Out of Sight, I knew that Steven (Soderbergh) did things in a fairly far-out way. So I said to him, "Stretch me." We tried a lot of things that we didn't put in the picture. Steven was always coming up with great ideas. I like working with him a lot."
• "I like to take time off between films. I think it's important to live your life. I don't think that if you are just an editor all the time that you are going to be a good editor. You've got to go out and experience things, see things and travel."
• "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."
• On previews: "I hate them more than I hate anything else that I can possibly think of."
• On collaborating with the directors: "I don’t care if a director tells me to take 10 frames off – because I don’t take 10 frames off. I take off what I think would be appropriate. Most directors have no idea what 10 frames looks like. If you work with Sidney Lumet, he knows what 10 frames are. Milos Forman does, too. But most directors, when they say “take 10 frames off,” they’re just kind of showing off to you. I’ve learned through the years you just do what you think is right. And they’ll think that’s great because they’ll never count the frames."

As film editor

• The Pickwick Papers (1952)
• Grand National Night (1953)
• Forbidden Cargo (1954)
• The Horse's Mouth (1958)
• Tunes of Glory (1960)
• Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
• Becket (1964)
• Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965)
• Hotel Paradiso (1966)
• Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
• The Elephant Man (1980)
• The Bushido Blade (1981) (supervising editor; with Yoshitami Kuroiwa)
• Ragtime (1981)
• Masters of the Universe (1987)
• Lawrence of Arabia (1962) (editorial consultant 1989 reconstruction and restoration)
• What About Bob? (1991)
• Chaplin (1992)
• In the Line of Fire (1993)
• Congo (1995)
• Striptease (1996)
• Out to Sea (1997)
• Out of Sight (1998)
• Erin Brockovich (2000)
• Sweet November (2001)
• Unfaithful (2002)
• The Golden Compass (2007)
• Extraordinary Measures (2010)
• 50 Shades of Grey (2015)

As assistant film editor

• The End of the River (1947) (second editor) (uncredited)
• The History of Mr. Polly (1949) (assistant editor) (uncredited)
• The Chiltern Hundreds (1949) (assistant editor) (uncredited)

• 1963 – Lawrence of Arabia (won) Academy Award Best Film Editing
• 1965 – Becket (nominated) Academy Award Best Film Editing
• 1981 – The Elephant Man (nominated) Academy Award Best Film Editing
• 1994 – In the Line of Fire (nominated) Academy Award Best Film Editing
• 1999 – Out of Sight (nominated) Academy Award Best Film Editing
• 2017 – Academy Honorary Award (Lifetime Achievement Oscar)

see: Academy Award for Film Editing

• 1975 – Murder on the Orient Express (nominated) BAFTA Film Award Best Editing
• 1981 – The Elephant Man (nominated) BAFTA Film Award Best Editing
• 1993 – In the Line of Fire (nominated) BAFTA Film Award Best Editing
• 2001 – Erin Brockovich (nominated) BAFTA Film Award Best Editing
• 2007 – BAFTA Fellowship

see: BAFTA Award for Best Editing

• 1963 – Lawrence of Arabia (nominated) American Cinema Editors ACE Eddie Best Edited Feature Film
• 1965 – Becket (nominated) American Cinema Editors ACE Eddie Best Edited Feature Film
• 1994 – In the Line of Fire (nominated) American Cinema Editors ACE Eddie Best Edited Feature Film
• 1995 – American Cinema Editors Career Achievement Award (won)
• 1997 – International Award Women in Film Crystal Awards (won)
• 1999 – Out of Sight (nominated) American Cinema Editors ACE Eddie Best Edited Feature Film
• 1999 – Out of Sight (nominated) Online Film Critics Society Award (OFCS) Best Film Editing
• 2012 - The Motion Picture Editors Guild included two films edited by Coates in its listing of the best-edited films of all time. Lawrence of Arabia (1962) was seventh, and Out of Sight (1998) was fifty-second.