Class of 1960

Film editor ARTHUR COBURN feeds his soul.

When Coburn graduated cum laude from Dartmouth, the international relations major headed to Harvard Law School. But when he returns for his 50th reunion next year it won’t be as a law partner but as a respected Hollywood film editor who has worked on such blockbusters as Spider-Man and The Mask, academy award-winner Monster and Harrison Ford’s forthcoming Crossing over.

“I worked as a lawyer for a year at a Seattle law firm and quit the day I passed the bar,” says Coburn, who divides his time between Seattle and Los angeles. “It didn’t feed my soul. I was always interested in artistic things.” He landed a job with the film division of Seattle’s NBC affiliate, and eventually a friend asked if he wanted to apprentice on a movie he was editing—one Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. It went on to win five Oscars.

Coburn then worked on Francis Ford Coppola’s groundbreaking apocalypse now. “Post-production on that film took two and half years, and I worked on it for about six months,” Coburn says.

Coburn, who is also working on a novel—“about love and art and family and lots of juicy stuff”—says he has no regrets about leaving the law for film. “I can’t think of something I would’ve rather done. I’ve met fabulous people, I’ve made a decent living and i’ve gone to interesting places in the world. So I’m a happy guy.”