Tom Priestley Dies: ‘Deliverance’ Film Editor, Son Of ‘An Inspector Calls’ Playwright J.B. Priestley Was 91

Greg Evans
·2-min read

Tom Priestley, the son of British playwright and novelist J.B. Priestley who established his own show business career as an Oscar-nominated film editor on such major projects as John Boorman’s Deliverance (1972), Blake Edwards’ The Return of the Pink Panther (1975) and Roman Polanski‘s Tess (1979), died December 25. He was 91.

His death was only later announced by the J.B. Priestley Society.

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“It with the utmost sadness we announce the death of out President Tom Priestley,” the J.B. Priestley Society said in a statement. “Tom who was J. B. Priestley’s only son became one of this country’s finest film editors. Perhaps his most famous film was Deliverance for which he was Oscar Nominated. He was a most charming man.”

Born Tom Holland Priestley on April 22, 1932, in London, he was educated at Bryanston School and King’s College, Cambridge, before beginning his professional career at Shepperton Studios in various capacities, including as an assistant sound editor. His breakthrough credits came with the films Whistle Down the Wind (1961) and This Sporting Life (1963).

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Priestley remained a prolific film – and initially sound – editor throughout the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. In addition to Deliverance – which brought his sole Oscar nomination, for film editing – Priestley collaborated with Boorman on Leo the Last (1970) and Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977).

Other credits include Jack Clayton’s The Great Gatsby starring Robert Redford (1974); Edwards’ The Return of the Pink Panther (1975); Stuart Rosenberg’s Voyage of the Damned (1976) and, in 1979, Polanski‘s Tess starring Nastassja Kinski.

While his career began to slow during the 1980s, he edited Michael Radford’s high-profile adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984 starring John Hurt and Richard Burton (1984). He would reteam with Radford for 1987’s White Mischief.

After pivoting from film editing, Priestley largely devoted himself to managing his father’s estate, and he was president of the J. B. Priestley Society and The Priestley Centre for the Arts in Bradford, West Yorkshire. Complete information on survivors was not immediately available.

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