Career
He was nominated for Academy Awards for his work on Blackboard Jungle (1955), The Manchurian Candidate (1962), and The Great Escape (1963). Webster was raised in the state of Washington, and was a student at the University of Southern California, where he was an outstanding track and field athlete. He was trained as an editor at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, and received his first feature-film cr in 1943 for Harrigan"s Kid.
At Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Webster edited six films with director Vincente Minnelli: Undercurrent (1946), Madame Bovary (1949), Father of the Bride (1950), Father"s Little Dividend (1951), The Long, Long Trailer (1954), and Tea and Sympathy (1956).
His last film at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was Key Witness (1960). Bruce Eder has written, "If ever a film editor deserved public recognition in the 1960s, it was Ferris Webster." Webster edited the three films of director John Frankenheimer"s "paranoia trilogy": The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Seven Days in May (1964), and Seconds (1966).
Eder writes that The Manchurian Candidate was "the editor"s magnum opus. Bernard "Barney" Rutkowski in Seven Days in May.
Webster and Sturges" notable collaboration included fifteen films between 1950 and 1972, which is about half of Sturges" films in that period.
lieutenant started with The Magnificent Yankee and Mystery Street (1950), and included The Law and Jake Wade (1958), The Magnificent Seven (1960), and Ice Station Zebra (1968).
The final film of their collaboration was Joe Kidd (1972), which was near the end of Sturges" career. Joe Kidd starred Clint Eastwood. In the last phase of his career, Webster edited and co-edited eight films that were directed by Eastwood, starting with High Plains Drifter (1973), which was Eastwood"s second film as a director
Webster edited Breezy (1973), The Eiger Sanction (1975), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), The Gauntlet (1977), Bronco Billy (1980), Firefox (1982) and Honkytonk Manitoba (both 1982).
These latter two films with Eastwood concluded Webster"s career as an editor, apparently after a falling-out between the two mentor Additional credits include The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), Lili (1953), Forbidden Planet (1956), Les Girls (1957), Divorce American Style (1967).