WB and DFE music editor Eugene Marks dead at 89

Emmy-nominated filmmaker Eugene R. Marks, an editor for several Warner Bros. and DePatie-Freleng Enterprises cartoon series, died at home Sunday in Thousand Oaks, California of leukemia. He was 89.

His wife Myra was at his side.

For over 35 years, Marks was a music editor at WB, where he worked on Bugs Bunny/Road Runner cartoons. He was an editor of The Road Runner Show (1966) and The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour (1968), as well as The Pink Panther Show (1969) and The Pink Panther Laugh and a Half Hour and a Half Show. In addition, he was an editor on "The Honeymousers," a 1962 episode of The Bugs Bunny Show.

He was the music editor of Ralph Bakshi's 1982 cartoon feature film Hey Good Lookin'. In 1966, he edited the DFE theatrical cartoon shorts The Pique Poquette of Paris, Feather Finger, A Squeak in the Deep, Pink-A-Boo and Ape Suzette.

In 1985, he shared a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Film Sound Editing for a Limited Series or a Special in connection with that year's ABC special Embassy.

Eugene Robert Marks was born in Los Angeles on May 24, 1923. He grew up living on the Universal Studios back lot during the Great Depression, and then attended Los Angeles High School and UCLA. He worked for over 40 years in the film industry, first as a sound editor and then as a music editor.

Marks was one of the last surviving veterans of the United States Army Air Forces First Motion Picture Unit, in which he served during the Second World War alongside director John Sturges; writer Irving Wallace; and actors Clark Gable, Ronald Reagan, William Holden, Lee J. Cobb and Alan Ladd. The unit comprised leading filmmakers enlisted from Hollywood to make recruiting and training films, including the classified films that prepared U.S. bombing crews to find targets in Germany and Japan to end the war.

After stints at Desilu and Universal, he worked at Warner Bros. on a wide range of classic films and TV programs like My Fair Lady, Camelot, Giant, Cool Hand Luke, Dirty Harry, Magnum Force, Blazing Saddles, The Exorcist, Enter the Dragon, Mame and Roots. He was sent to Moscow in the winter of 1969-70 by Warner Bros. and the American government to work on a unique international film co-production on Tchaikovsky as part of the "détente" thawing in U.S.-Soviet relations.

Marks was a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the Motion Picture Sound Editors and the Motion Picture Editors Guild.

A past president of Temple Adat Elohim in Thousand Oaks, Marks served as a leader and active volunteer for a number of local arts and industry organizations, including the Warner Bros. Studio Museum, the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, Camerata Pacifica, the New West Symphony, the Conejo Players and the Paley Center for Media.

He is survived by his wife, the former Myra Goldman Lee; son Allan; daughter Susan Jacoby; grandchildren Danielle Jacoby, Brandon Jacoby and Jacqueline Marks; and first wife Maryann Sloan Kleinman.

Memorial service and burial were held Wednesday at Pierce Brothers Valley Oaks Memorial Park in Westlake Village, California.