A three-time nominee for the Best Film Editing Oscar, Richard Marks came of age with the "new" Hollywood of the late 1960s, but, like his frequent collaborator in the 70s, Francis Ford Coppola, has gone on to prove himself a master of the classical language. As Coppola was ingeniously reasserting the classical form with "The Godfather", Marks was cutting his teeth with his first editing job, "Parades" (both 1972). Two years later, they teamed up (with collaboration from Peter Zinner and Barry Malkin) to produce one of the most smoothly edited films of any period, "The Godfather, Part II", which not only functioned in the classical mode, but managed to cut between two time periods in an impressively modern fashion. Marks continued his association with Coppola and earned his first Oscar nomination for his stunning work on "Apocalypse Now" (1979).
In the 80s, James L Brooks superseded Coppola as Marks' most frequent collaborator. The editor garnered Oscar nominations for his first two assignments for Brooks, the Academy Award-winning Best Picture "Terms of Endearment" (1983) and "Broadcast News" (1987). Marks consolidated his position as a front rank editor with an associate producer credit on Penny Marshall's directorial debut, "Jumpin' Jack Flash" (1986)--an acknowledged sign of his importance to the project--and reteamed with Marshall to edit her wildly popular "A League of Their Own" (1992). He went on to earn an associate producer tag on Brooks' "I'll Do Anything" (1994) and then co-produced "As Good as It Gets" (1997), in addition to editing both projects.