Saddle up for a trip through entertainment history with a weekly highlight from Santa Clarita’s Walk of Western Stars! This week, editor Joel Cox. 

Joel Cox was born in 1942 and his film career began at a very early age, appearing in front of the cameras as a baby in “Random Harvest.”

Some twenty years later Cox began work as a mail-room boy with Warner Brothers, the company with whom he has worked ever since, and in 1969 moved into the cutting-room, as an uncredited assistant editor on “Woodstock” and “The Wild Bunch.” 

Cox was unaccredited as an assistant on “The Outlaw Josey Wales,” working for the first time with Clint Eastwood. A durable collaboration followed with Cox cutting all films made by Eastwood since.

Rudi Fehr, a well-known editor and executive at Warner Bros., made Cox an apprentice editor about three years later. 

As was common in the era, Cox worked as an uncredited assistant for several years, according to officials. 

Cox’s first credit as an assistant editor was for “The Rain People,” which was directed by Francis Ford Coppola and edited by Barry Malkin. 

His first credit as editor was for “Farewell, My Lovely” (1975), which was directed by Dick Richards and co-edited by the veteran editor Walter A. Thompson. 

Cox had just finished working as Thompson’s assistant on “Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins” (1975), which was also directed by Richards. Cox worked on two more of Richards’ films, March or Die (1977 – as assistant editor) and Death Valley (1982).

Cox has had a notable collaboration with Clint Eastwood that commenced with the 1976 film “The Outlaw Josey Wales,” for which Cox was Ferris Webster’s assistant.

 Cox and Webster were co-editors on “The Gauntlet” (1977) and on several more of Eastwood’s subsequent films. 

Starting with “Sudden Impact” (1983), Cox became Eastwood’s principal editor, according to officials.  

Gary D. Roach, who worked as Cox’s assistant from the mid-1990s, became Cox’s co-editor on Eastwood’s films with “Letters from Iwo Jima” (2006). 

Cox’s long streak editing each of Eastwood’s films ended with “Sully,” which was edited by another of his former assistants, Blu Murray. 

In addition to his career in the film industry, since 2000 Cox and his family have owned and managed a vineyard and winery near Paso Robles, California. 

Cox won the 1992 Academy Award for Best Film Editing for “Unforgiven,” he has also been elected as a member of the American Cinema Editors. 

On November 25, 2008, Clint Eastwood presented Cox the first Ignacy Paderewski Lifetime Achievement Award, which is named in honor of the piano virtuoso who called Paso Robles home, at the first Paso Robles Digital Film Festival.

Cox received a nomination for the 2009 BAFTA Award for Best Editing for “Changeling” and for the 2015 Academy Award for Best Film Editing for “American Sniper.” 

Where is Joel Cox’s Plaque on the Walk of Western Stars? 

In 2012, Cox was honored with a plaque on the Walk of Western Stars. The plaque is on the west side of Main Street in front of Pulchella Winery on Main.  

Click here to view last week’s feature. 

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